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(30) Nord contre Sud (North Against South, aka Texar's Revenge, 1887) (2 volumes) 115K words


The 30th Extraordinary Voyage takes us to the United States. It's not the first Voyage that takes place exclusively there, but this one is more grounded in American history than the previous ones, which included an optimistic science fiction tale ("From the Earth to the Moon") and a cautionary tale about evil scientists and politics involving two fictitious cities ("The Begum's Millions"). In this case, Verne tells a story about the American Civil War. This is the second of the four historical novels that Verne wrote at this stage of his career, within the span of five years. The first of those is "The Archipelago on Fire", and the other two would be "The Flight to France" and "Family Without a Name". Many American Verne readers will probably be unaware that the author wrote about their Civil War, and I can't blame them, because at this point Verne's huge success with his early novels was a thing of the past. He kept writing and publishing new novels every year, but one has to admit that "North Against South" is among his lesser-known works.


First read or reread?: First read for me.


What is it about?: In Florida, two men, Texar and Burbank, are bitter enemies. Burbank's northern views against slavery is an unpopular stance with Texar and the rest of the community, deep in the Confederate States of America. On top of this disagreement, though, Texar is angry for past legal troubles Burbank has brought upon him. Despite Texar having a seemingly perfect alibi that allows him to escape conviction, he feels the need for vengeance and eventually becomes a prominent and powerful member of the Jacksonville community, taking advantage of the chaoss caused by the war. Using this newfound power, Texar turns the townsfolk against Burbank and leads a mob that destroys the Burbank plantation, known as Camdless Bay. Burbank's little daughter Dy and her caretaker Zermah are both kidnapped and are purportedly taken to a place in the Everglades called Carneral Island.


Verne has been accused of taking many historical liberties with this novel. I'm not enough of an expert to judge by myself, but I have no doubt that the accusations are true. Verne has clearly documented himself by reading a couple of books about the Civil War (which was a relatively recent event at that time, having ended little more than twenty years before the publication of this novel), and no doubt he has the military events and dates right but, beyond that, the details about what was going on with the society of Jacksonville and Florida in general are probably made up, as fictional as the characters.

I suspect, although again I'm no expert, that the same could be said about the other Verne historical novels. For example, I'm sure that in "The Archipelago on Fire" he takes many liberties with the historical details. He just gets more flak about "North Against South" because there are many more people knowledgeable about the American Civil War than about the Greek War of Independence. The impression I get is that the author documented himself but did not study the subject deeply enough to become an expert.

Leaving the matter of historical accuracy aside, what interests me more is how good "North Against South" is as a story. The answer is that it is a very decent adventure story, with plenty of drama and action, although it's not one of Verne's most inspired works. It's still quite readable, though. My main criticism is that the novel is a bit on the slow side, although it speeds up in the second volume, particularly when we move to the Everglades. I also thought that the twist about how the villain Texar managed to always escape justice was easy to guess. Nevertheless, there's plenty of adventure to satisfy Verne's fans once the story starts going.

It is worth pointing out that this was a difficult period in Verne's life. Both his mother and his lifetime editor Hetzel had died the previous year, and he had been shot in the leg by a mentally unstable nephew, leaving him with physical aftereffects. It's difficult to know how these events affected this novel. Around this time the themes in Verne's work are supposed to turn a bit darker, as we saw in the previous novel "Robur the Conqueror". However, this is a tendency, far from a fixed rule, and this novel is not particularly cautionary or pessimistic. It's just a historical adventure.

An important theme here, of course, is slavery. Verne's strong anti-slavery beliefs are well-known. When it comes to race matters, as I have commented in other reviews, Verne was a person of his time. In other works, he does not shy away from sensational portrayals of indigenous cultures as savage and prone to cannibalism, for example. However, the criticism he gets for his portrayal of a black comic-relief character in Robur the Conqueror is a bit unfair. Sure, depicting a black character as a cowardly idiot is against modern standards, but he also has white characters who are idiots and cowards. And in other cases he has black characters who are brave and noble, for example in "Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen".

Here, too, black characters like Zermah or her husband, Mars, are portrayed as brave, noble, resourceful and smart. I certainly won't pretend Verne was enlightened from a 21st century perspective. One can still notice this is not a modern novel in details like, for example, the gratitude and loyalty that the liberated former slaves have towards their former master, or how some of Texar's slaves had been reduced to a brutish state. Verne was well-meaning, but his liberalism was convential and bourgeoisie. However, I do think this novel is enlightened for a 19th century European writer.

I enjoyed exploring Florida, the relatively civilized St. Johns River in the north and the wilderness of the Everglades in the south. I also found the villain interesting because, although he was evil and despicable, he did have one redeeming quality. Well, redeeming is going too far, let's same one praiseworthy quality lost among his many flaws.


Enjoyment factor: I enjoyed it, although the first part took longer to hook me than other Verne stories. Perhaps this should have been a bit shorter. At this point in Verne's career, despite these novels being relatively obscure, I'm still finding them quite enjoyable. They lack some of that energy and exhuberance of Verne's early works, which I liked a lot, but they are competent works by a great storyteller.


Next up: The Flight to France