Caesar Cascabel
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Caesar Cascabel is a novel by the French author Jules Verne . The novel was first published as a book in 1890 by the Pierre-Jules Hetzel publishing house under the French title César Cascabel . The novel was reprinted from January 1, 1890 to December 15, 1890 in advance in the Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation in volumes 51 and 52. The first German-language edition appeared in 1891 under the title Caesar Cascabel . The English title of the novel is César Cascabel .
action
Caesar Cascabel has been traveling the USA as an artist for many years . His troupe, which consists of jugglers and artists, consists mainly of members of his family (wife Cornelia, sons Jean and Xander, daughter Napoleone). Caesar decides that it is time to return to his French homeland with his family in his fairground car. He must also transport his savings safely. For this purpose he uses a heavy cash box. This then arouses the desire of the hired leaders. They steal the cassette and flee with the horses. This prevents Caesar Cascabel's original itinerary of crossing the United States and boarding a transatlantic liner in New York.
Caesar Cascabel then decides to take an unusual route to France . He chooses the more difficult route via California , Canada , Alaska and the frozen Bering Strait to Siberia . From there he wants to travel overland through southern Siberia and central Russia to France. He intends to supplement the travel budget with performances along the way. He embarks on his journey with little knowledge. However, political adversity is hindering his travel route. The sale of Alaska from Russia to the USA just in time makes the border crossing possible in the first place.
The journey is hampered by robberies, intrigues and the appearance of the pretty young Indian woman Kayette, to whom Caesar's eldest son Jean has his heart. Caesar Cascabel meets deserters , political convicts and the Russian nobleman Count Narkine, who, as a political exile, tries to reach his homeland incognito and joins the tour group on their unconventional route.
When crossing the Bering Strait too early, the draft horses break into the ice and the traveling car is driven west on an ice floe in the North Sea. They ended up stranded on one of the Liakhoff Islands, where they were captured by the indigenous people who lived there. Only by a trick by Caesar Cascabel (the idols of the islanders "command" the release of the troupe of artists - in fact, it was only Caesar's ventriloquism) can they go. Two Russians stranded on this island, who pretend to be sailors, accompany the Cascabel family. However, they have discovered the true identity of the Russian Sergius, alias Count Narkine, and are planning to blackmail him into betraying him to the Russian authorities.
The last section of the journey takes the circus people from the north Siberian coast in a south-westerly direction across the Urals to the city of Perm . During a performance of Die Räuber des Schwarzwaldes , Caesar is able to hand over the villains who blackmailed Count Narkine to the authorities. His son Xander has been carrying a gold nugget with him since the stage in Alaska , for which he can get a nice sum of money - but it is not clear whether this nugget is really worth 20,000 rubles, which the tsar's amnesty has now returned to his old one Right-hand employed Count Nakrine pays for it. The return journey to Normandy and the future of the family are thus secured.
filming
literature
- Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
- Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
- Volker Dehs: Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6
Web links
- "Caesar Cascabel" as an e-book in HTML on zeno.org
- Caesar Cascabel in Andreas Fehrmann's Jules Verne Collection