review of
Jules Verne's For The Flag
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 25, 2013

Continuing my spree of reading more obscure Jules Verne novels: this is the 4th - I've reviewed the others here: The Begum's Fortune ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17611386-the-begum-s-fortune ), The Demon of Cawnpore ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17618514-steam-house ), & Carpathian Castle ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17660660-carpathian-castle ).

Perhaps what's most remarkable about this bk is this: "Verne had been greatly impressed by, and may indeed have derived the theme of his book from the experiences of a contemporary scientist, the chemist Eugène Turpin. This unfortunate man had invented a very powerful explosive, melinite, based, like the British lyddite, on picric acid. It had been rejected by the French Government, whom the embittered and half-ruined inventor had violently attacked in a book so virulent that the government he assailed promptly banned it. Some of his brushes with officialdom seem to have a parallel with those of Thomas Roch as described in For the Flag. / No inventor could feel flattered at being compared, even by implication, with a madman, and the unhappy Turpin was so enraged at the appearance of this book that he brought an action against Verne for defamation of character. Defended by one of his admirers, a brilliant young lawyer, Raymond Poincaré, who later became premier of France, Verne won his case." (pp 5- 6, I. O. Evans' Introduction)

Given that the bk is patriotic, I have to wonder whether Turpin didn't really just get screwed by Poincaré's fervor. An online site claims that "In Verne’s correspondance with his brother Paul, he frequently refers to “le Turpin”, meaning his character Roch, or the novel Facing the flag" ( http://jv.gilead.org.il/FAQ/ ) so it seems that Turpin was justified in suing Verne & that Verne just used his power & wealth to deny any of Turpin's accusations.

Verne describes Roch/Turpin thusly:

"This was a frenchman named Thomas Roch, aged forty. That he was mentally unbalanced could not be doubted, but so far the doctors had not declared him completely insane. His inability to cope with the most simple acts of life was only too certain, yet his reason remained clear, powerful and incontestable whenever an appeal was made to his genius - and who does not know that "great wits to madness often are allied"? But when his powers were called into action, they manifested themselves in delirium and incoherence. Then he became merely an unreasoning being, bereft of that natural instinct found even in the lower animals - that of self-preservation - and he had to be treated like a child who could not be trusted out of sight."

[..]

"Ordinary madness, when not incurable, can be cured only by moral means. medicine and therapeutics are impotent, and their inefficacy has long been recognized. Were moral means applicable to Thomas Roch? This was doubtful, even in the peaceful and salubrious surroundings of Healthful House. His symptoms - restlessness, varying moods, irritability, eccentricities of character, melancholy, apathy, repugnance to either amusement or serious occupation, were clearly defined. No doctor could be mistaken: no treatment promised either to remove or reduce them." - pp 10-11

Wdn't you be tempted to sue if you were described like that? &, yet, Roch is 'cured' by the 'villains' who simply treat him the way he wants to be treated. Verne seems to miss some of the implications of his own story. The villains in general are described thusly: "In them I can distinguish no common stock - not even, indeed, that bond which will be found among North Americans, or Europeans, or Asiatics. The colour of their skins varies - from white, to copper and black, and it is the black of the Australasian rather than that of the African. Most of them seem to belong to the East Indian races; Count d'Artigas certainly belongs to that race found in the Dutch East Indies: Serko comes from the Levant, and Spade seems of Italian origin." (p 101) Seems pretty good to me.

The intro concludes w/ the claim that Verne "seems to have had an inkling of the possibilities of future weapons, and this may help to explain the cloud of unhappiness which darkened his later years." (p 7) Then again, may be was approaching death w/ a less-than-enthusiastic attitude - like the rest of us. Regardless, this IS yet-another prophetic bk. It's easy to see Roch's invention as a guided nuclear missile (even tho that's not exactly right) & to imagine the idea developing in the bk much further than it actually did. While I reckon Verne probably thought he went pretty far w/ his destructive fantasy, I was a bit disappointed that it didn't go much further. Science fiction post Hiroshima & Nagasaki has no such limits.

In a dialog between the narrator & the main villain later in the bk, the narrator questions the villain:

""By what right, Sir-?" I demand.

""The right of the stronger," the Count replies. Then he goes aft, while the sailors carry Thomas Roch to his cabin." - p 72

What Verne doesn't question is whether the governments that he supports in his patriotism don't basically have the same idea - just backed by less honest philosophy.

W/o giving the plot away, I will say that on pp 86-87 there's a classic in/un-credible 'coincidence' that's just too strong to be believed. Then on page 165 the narrator makes a slip that he'd previously avoided & no mention of the previously feared consequences is made. This novel was written in 1896 & was a bit too similar to Verne's The Mysterious Island from 1874. As such, it was a bit of a disappointment. Whatever. I enjoyed it, it was typical Verne entertainment - wch I seem to have a well nigh 'eternal' soft spot for. ( )

This novel did not hold the permanence that other Verne novels had with me. I feel that it was rushed, a bit slapdash, and not necessarily eventful in the way that needed to be done. For all these reasons, and more, I don't consider it a good selection of Verne's work.

2 stars. ( )

First of all, this novel is of course as genius as all of Verne's stories. He is known as a prophet for quiet an amount of inventions; submarines, flight, the use of electricity - this time it's nothing less then the foreseeing of the Cold War. It might not be exactly the situation described that happened a century after the writing, but there are enough similarities. An infamies pirate in disguise kidnaps a mad scientist who says he invented something comparable to an atomic bomb and whom the industrious nations didn't offer enough money for selling this invention. This mad scientist then builds this bomb in the pirates' hideout - a fantastically well described cavern somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. With the bomb, the pirate and his followers can practically rule over the whole world. If the other nations only had listened...

I didn't like the ending which lets Verne look like an excessive patriotic Frenchman. Still, it was fun to read as always. ( )

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