Martin Paz

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Tad Davis

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Dec 25, 2025, 4:43:14 PM12/25/25
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I have a decision to make, and I'm hoping to get some other opinions to take into consideration. 

I'm working on a new version of Martin Paz. This will be an audiobook and may end up as a printed text as well. But the main goal is the audio, and that to some extent governs my approach. 

The problem I'm having is this. I love the story, but I hate the antisemitism that is so prominent in the characterization of Samuel, and the casual racism that is evident to some extent even in the treatment of the indigenous and mixed-race characters. 

I'm thinking of making some changes, and I'm wondering at what point it slides over from translation into adaptation. I'm OK calling it an adaptation if that's what it is. I'm just not sure where the line is. Any changes I make will be clearly documented in an afterword, so anyone reading it (or listening to it) will know where it varies from the original. 

First off, Verne tends to refer to people by their ethnicity rather than by name. Martin Paz is often "the Indian," André Certa "the mestizo," and Samuel "the Jew." One simple change is to use character names rather than ethnicity wherever the context allows it. (This applies only to the omniscient narrator. Comments made by characters about each other remain as is.)

A more difficult problem is "the Sambo." This is the leader of the native community. Why Sambo? Unless I've been misinformed, the word derives from zambo, the term for those of mixed native and African heritage, and clearly the native leader is not a zambo. And worse, "sambo" is a terrible racial epithet in the US. As I understand it, the correct term for the leader of the Quechua community—the native group most common in Peru, and to which Martin Paz and the others would most likely belong—is "Kuraka." I would be inclined to change "the Sambo" to "the Kuraka."

I even wonder about the term "Indian." I've been told "native" is a more neutral term and would be historically accurate; and that specificity (i.e. "Quechua") would be even better. Accusations of political correctness don't worry me in the least. Calling people something they find offensive is what concerns me. If this were a print project, footnotes might suffice, but again, this is primarily an audio project, intended for people with no prior exposure to the story. If they have to wait till the afterword to find out why I used a term they find offensive, they might not get that far. 

About that anti-semitism again. There are two passages (sentences, really) where Verne attributes motives to Samuel that blacken his character far beyond the requirements of the story and are racist plain and simple. I'm inclined to omit those sentences from the text and discuss them in the afterword. He remains the chief villain of the piece, but clearly Verne thinks Samuel is a villain because he's Jewish, and that's what I find objectionable. He's bad enough without the additional baggage. (In one way, this is an extension of an existing trend. The original serialized version of the story, as evident in its Palik Series edition and the discussion by Daniel Compére, is even more explicitly antisemitic, with chapter titles like "The Jew Always a Jew." When issued in book form, this was already toned down and several such passages deleted.)

So what I'm trying to figure out is this: should I drop the project altogether, because the changes, minor as they seem to me, amount to a Michel Verne-style rewriting? Or make the changes and clearly label it an adaptation? Is the goal to accurately reflect Verne or to create an entertaining audiobook? I'm not a professional translator or academic; I'm an audiobook narrator. At the same time I want to do as little violence to the original as my conscience will allow me.
 
Tad Davis

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Chris Moser

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Dec 25, 2025, 4:46:25 PM12/25/25
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You would be denying reality if you attempted to soften Verne’s racism

And its not enough to say Verne was a product of the times

Our favourite author has a major character flaw

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Darek Powell

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Dec 25, 2025, 5:05:29 PM12/25/25
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Tad,

I could be wrong, but when I was reading it, I thought Sambo was his name, not title. It may derive from the same place when Verne came up with the name though.

-Darek J Powell
Treasurer, NAJVS, Inc.

Matthew 6:25-34

Tad Davis

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Dec 25, 2025, 5:43:26 PM12/25/25
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He’s referred to pretty consistently as “le Sambo,” which makes me think it’s a title, or analogous to “l’Indien” (the Indian), “le juif” (the Jew), or “le métis” (the mestizo).
 
If I feel like I can’t in good conscience narrate it, I might still (rather than discard the work to date) present it in a form that accurately reflects Verne but with all the footnotes I would want to see. 

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Tad Davis

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Dec 25, 2025, 5:53:43 PM12/25/25
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Chris,
 
Yes—it’s distressing. As a narrator, it was particularly difficult in the case of Robur. Fortunately in that case Alex Kirstukas’s excellent introduction dealt forthrightly with the racist depiction of Frycollin, and the introduction was included in the audio. Maybe that’s what I need to think about doing here. 
 
Tad 

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William Butcher

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Dec 25, 2025, 7:04:31 PM12/25/25
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A well-written intro would certainly help, but might still not be enough...

Joyeuses fetes to all,

Bill
From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tad Davis <tad.dav...@gmail.com>
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To: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [JVF] Martin Paz
 

quentin skrabec

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Dec 25, 2025, 8:31:23 PM12/25/25
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you know how i feel no book should ever be intentionally changed- use an audio note if it seems wrong to you. Woke has no place in a literary translation. an author's words must stand as is -- its the first amendment of literature, Quent

Tad Davis

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Dec 26, 2025, 7:36:30 AM12/26/25
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My thanks to everyone. You’ve helped me wake up from whatever it was I was trying to talk myself into. Chalk it up to my thinking out loud among friends. I’ll stick as close to Verne as I can (keeping in mind that my bias toward audio will require an occasional paraphrase or “embedded footnote”) and will trust to Foreword, footnotes, and Afterword to do the rest. The decision about whether to narrate it will have to wait. 
 
Tad

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Tad Davis

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Dec 26, 2025, 11:33:29 AM12/26/25
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It may be amusing to others to read the AI confabulation I encountered when, as an experiment, I asked it what “the Sambo” might signify in the novel Martin Paz. This is what Google’s Gemini told me:
 
In Jules Verne’s Martin Paz, Sampaio is a character's last name (or surname), and he serves as a pivotal figure in the Indigenous uprising.
While "the Sambo" (Manrique) represents the mixed-race faction, Sampaio represents the pure Indigenous Peruvian (Inca) faction. Here are the key details about his role:
• Identity: He is an elderly, influential Indigenous chief (often referred to as the leader of the Indians of the mountains).
• Relationship to Martin Paz: He is the adoptive father (and political mentor) of the protagonist, Martin Paz. He rescued Martin and raised him to be a leader for their people.
• Character Motivation: Sampaio is a radical nationalist. He is obsessed with the idea of overthrowing Spanish rule and restoring the ancient Inca Empire. Because of this, he is the primary antagonist to Martin’s romance with Sarah; he views Martin’s love for a "Spanish" girl as a betrayal of their race and their revolutionary cause.
• The Contrast: Unlike "the Sambo" (Manrique), who is portrayed as more chaotic and violent, Sampaio is depicted as a stern, dignified, yet fanatical figure who values racial purity and the historical destiny of the Sun-worshipers.
 
Now, unless Michel Verne did a version of the novel I don’t know about, or this is based on some film version of the story, this is a complete fabrication. Manrique and the Sampaio don’t exist, although it’s an interesting solution to the dilemma. Sampaio seems to be a conflation of the Sambo and Don Vegal. 
 
Tad

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James D. Keeline

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Dec 26, 2025, 12:10:14 PM12/26/25
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I am glad to see that you identified which AI system (Google Gemini) you were using to get this.  There are vast differences between AI systems.  A ChatGPT (or one derived from it that uses a different name) is more likely to make up content if it doesn't find a document to paraphrase.  I have found Gemini to be more reasonable on this score with fewer instances of presenting a "hallucination" as an absolute fact as ChatGPT will cheerfully do.

The AI summary at the top of a Google search does not seem to be Gemini by default.  Perhaps when using the "deeper" link, it may be.

Martin Paz is not a story I know well.  But if there are some name changes between the French editions (serial and book) and English translations, that could be important to the overall reception of this portion of the story.  If a 19thC translator changed Sampaio to Sambo because it sounded similar, that could introduce stereotypes and other negative connotations.  A clearer understanding of this is needed for your project.

James D. Keeline

p.s.  I use Claud

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quentin skrabec

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Dec 26, 2025, 12:44:19 PM12/26/25
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Tad
This is a great example of what I have been saying about AI 
The database and database base networks links is key - Google uses data from its own forums, etc., which is often incorrect. for example  in AI Jules Verne things from are own forum will pop up dangerous ideas like mine might end up in your search 🙂Also, the algorithm has a frequency factor, so if you repeat a myth, legend, or pure lie, it can become AI factual. Wikipedia has a high factor in the algorithm as well.  The  Author Rights movement, which is a good thing, often means an important book might not be included in the search. I'm actually making good money selling some of my little read books to databases!!!

AI can write a good essay or a biography on Jules Verne, but it can't deal well with specific questions like yours very well (yet that will change as the database improves and the algorithm is honed. It can do fairly good with a general generic reasach paper like "compare Wells to Jules Verne" - but very limited on accuracy for a paper such as  Did Verne predict the raise of Hitler in his character Harry Killer  - although it would be interesting reading! Basically would throw all the shit in the database at you
Translations -- I have talked about before - it is very good  at taking today's  English to today's French- it probably years away from correctly dealing with word time periods, etymology, old technical terms (such as carbonic acid - as carbon dioxide) but it will learn based on the popularity of the book or author. 

However, don't write off its research potential for well learned researcher, just like the use of  Wikipedia. Its weakness of including obscure data in its database such as forums can actually give a researcher a lead to follow- it also includes more original references to check on. I use google AI mode and Google regular search 
Quent

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Tad Davis

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Dec 26, 2025, 1:08:28 PM12/26/25
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This was the Google Gemini iPhone app—I don’t know specifically which level of AI was doing the summary. 
 
There is a character called Le Sambo in French and “the Sambo” in all the English translations I’m aware of (by George Towle, Ellen Frewer, and Anne Wilbur). There is no character in either language called Sampaio or the Sampaio. 
 
There is no character called Manrique in the story. The character called Le Sambo is never called anything else. If he has a name, we never learn what it is, but since he’s clearly Martin Paz’s father, we can surmise that his surname is Paz. In that case, the only character in the book without a surname, in a significant maneuver of dehumanization, is Samuel the Jew. He’s always either Samuel or the Jew or the old Jew.
 
If The Sambo is intended to be a title, the appropriate Spanish title—according to Gemini, of course!!—would be El Cacique, and the appropriate native title would be the Kuraka. Wikipedia at least agrees on the latter. 
 
There is a character who adopts Martin Paz and protects him, but it’s short-term, and the character is the Spaniard Don Vegal. I believe “the Sampaio” is Gemini’s conflation of The Sambo with Don Vegal. 
 
I have a feeling I may end up with more footnotes than text. But that’s OK. I’ve never met a footnote I didn’t want to write. 
 
Tad 

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Tad Davis

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Jan 16, 2026, 6:26:40 PMJan 16
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Since people were helpful with their comments, I wanted to post an update on my Martín Paz project. 
 
I’m going to be doing the novel twice, under a single cover, and offer readers (and/or listeners) a choice of either one or both. 
 
The first, labeled a translation, will be as close as I’m able to make it, apart from the fact that I do tend to paraphrase at times for clarity or stylistic reasons. This version will make no attempt to clean up Verne’s act. 
 
The second, clearly labeled an adaptation, will be the version I was contemplating, with the story more firmly anchored in the history of the period and less marred by the ethnic and religious stereotypes I find so offensive. In a sense it will be the story as Michel Verne might have revised it, although the changes I’m making are less drastic than many of his. I’m not adding or deleting any characters or episodes, and the ending is unchanged. 
 
I don’t have actual statistics, but I’m guessing that about 85% of the text is identical between the two versions. I may use Microsoft Word’s document comparison feature to actually come up with a real number for that. But I do know that I have both documents open in adjacent windows (with the French in a third) and have been jumping back and forth quite and bit between the two English versions to check consistency. 
 
Both will be extensively footnoted, and there will be an introduction giving additional historical background and explaining what I changed in the adaptation and why. 
 
Anyone who dislikes the idea of changing the original can ignore the adaptation and still have a fresh and, I hope, accurate translation of the text as Verne wrote it. 
 
Tad

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On Dec 26, 2025 at 7:36 AM -0500, Tad Davis <tad.dav...@gmail.com>, wrote:

William Butcher

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Jan 16, 2026, 7:20:40 PMJan 16
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Congratulations on this innovative idea. Since you're always so conscientious, I'm sure you won't take any undue liberties with the text. I only wish something similar could be done to put back episodes cut from Hatteras, Twenty Thousand Leagues, Around the World and others.

Bill


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quentin skrabec

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Jan 16, 2026, 7:35:41 PMJan 16
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I love your work but you know a don't like any changes to any author's work. Its part of the work and future researchers can get confused. 
Quent 
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Tad Davis

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Jan 16, 2026, 8:02:34 PMJan 16
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Quent,
 
I do know that, and that’s exactly why I want to include a faithful rendition of Verne’s text. 
 
There will be no confusion about which is Verne and which is me. 
 
Tad

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Tad Davis

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Jan 16, 2026, 10:23:26 PMJan 16
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Regarding the restoration of episodes. . . A number of cuts were restored to at least one edition of Huckleberry Finn, based on manuscript evidence. (Not just the “raft chapter,” other episodes as well, some quite illuminating.) They were episodes cut by the author, who in that case was also the publisher, but a case was made by the editors for the value they added to the novel. They were clearly marked but were integrated into the text. 
 
And there’s always the (admittedly controversial) Gabler edition of Ulysses. Pieces of text assembled from dozens of printed and manuscript sources, resembling nothing that Joyce himself ever laid eyes on. And yet it feels to me like a truer version of the novel than others. 
 
And don’t get me started on Shakespeare, whose editors fights wars as to whether there were one or two versions of King Lear. 
 
I know the situations aren’t analogous.  But I think a case could be made for restoring manuscript readings if the publisher’s interference is traceable and egregious (as it was in so many instances William Butcher has documented in Verne’s case).
 
Tad

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Rafael Ontivero

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Jan 17, 2026, 2:39:11 AMJan 17
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It’s depressing to me that we have to deal with this woke censorship shit in a supposedly adult society. Verne wrote what he wrote, and he wrote it the way he did. There is no need to change a thing just to satisfy today’s inherently stupid, 'right-thinking' sensibilities. We mock the euphemisms and substitutions made in Verne’s own era, yet today we find ourselves in an even worse situation—one that is laughable, in my view. We believe ourselves to be adults, yet we remain toddlers playing foolish games.

I like Tad’s decision, and I hope the original version comes first, followed by the 'sanitized' one for 'sensitive souls' and the rest of those 'perroflauta' types who enforce their double-standard decorum.

I would also love to see restored editions of Verne wherever possible. To paraphrase William, and just to give one example, the scene where Altamont shows up like a total alpha male where Hatteras himself can barely reach in the Mountains of Madness (wink, wink) left me completely baffled by its implausibility.

Anyway, it is what it is. Bread and euphemisms.

(By the way, this was written in Spanish and translated into English by an AI; my English isn't quite there yet, but my native Spanish is).

--
Now in the original:
Qué triste que me resulta que tengamos que andar con esas mierdas de censura woke en una supuestamente adulta. Verne escribió lo que escribió y lo hizo como lo hizo. No hay necesidad de ir cambiando nada causado por el inherentemente estúpido sentido bienpensante actual. Nos reímos de los eufemismos y reemplazos realizados en la época de Verne, pero en la actualidad nos encontramos en una situación todavía peor y risible desde mi punto de vista. Nos creemos adultos y seguimos siendo niños pequeños jugando tontadas.

Me gusta la decisión de Tad, y espero que la original esté primero y luego la sanitizada para "almas sensibles" y demás perroflautas del decoro medido con doble rasero.

Y también me gustaría ver ediciones de Verne restauradas allá donde sea posible. Parafraseando a William, y solo por poner un ejemplo, la escena en la que Altamont aparece cual macho alfa allí donde el propio Hatteras apenas puede llegar en los Montañas de la Locura (guiño, guiño) me dejó completamente descolocado por lo inverosímil.

En fin, es lo que hay. Pan y eufemismos. 

(Por cierto, esto ha sido escrito en español y traducido al inglés por una IA; mi inglés no llega a tanto, pero sí mi español nativo)


Tad Davis

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Jan 17, 2026, 10:10:13 AMJan 17
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Yes - the original comes first and will be presented as is (although the introduction and notes will make it clear where I stand). It will also appear as an audiobook and will be read without judgmental inflections.

However, I also want to say that, in case it isn’t obvious to anyone who’s been following this thread, that I’m as woke as they come. I consider it a compliment. 

Tad
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Tad Davis

On Jan 17, 2026, at 2:39 AM, Rafael Ontivero <rafael....@gmail.com> wrote:



Chris Moser

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Jan 17, 2026, 12:01:16 PMJan 17
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When are we going to have a chance to read this??

Tad Davis

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Jan 17, 2026, 12:31:20 PMJan 17
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I anticipate being done by the end of February. An audio version could be available within another month or so, because that’s largely under my control. Publication of the text would depend on the vagaries of publishing schedules—I haven’t felt brave enough to venture into the world of self-publication of texts yet. 

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Tad Davis

On Jan 17, 2026, at 12:01 PM, Chris Moser <crmo...@gmail.com> wrote:



Marie-Hélène Huet

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Jan 17, 2026, 2:57:19 PMJan 17
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I, too, appreciate Tad's sensitive, honest, and transparent effort to make Verne acceptable to some readers. with total respect for the original text.

On a different level, though, I agree with Rafael:  there is a dangerous trend, here and particularly in France, to sanitize literature. A professor occupying one of the most prestigious positions in France declared it was fine to rewrite masterpieces to make them more acceptable and said she refused to teach novels where a woman died at the end (which she saw as an obvious sign of misogyny).

I believe/hope she was simply provocative. Shall we rewrite the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Flaubert and Nabokov? It's ironic to have at the same time official efforts to rewrite history, and, from the opposite side, similar efforts to rewrite literature.

However, I believe everyone here is scrupulously attached to the original texts!

 
Marie-Hélène 

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quentin skrabec

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Jan 17, 2026, 3:15:52 PMJan 17
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That trend is real in the US. Some universities only allow sanitized editions of great literature. Original  editions are being banned for class use. In fact I know one professor making a great amount of money to sanitize. Another is using AI to produce these clean editions, AI is the perfect tool for this..  To me it's very distressing- that why I hate any change to the original in any format.
Quent
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Don Sample

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Jan 17, 2026, 3:33:21 PMJan 17
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I will admit that I omitted some adjectives in my translation of Captain Grant’s Children, and I added a whole lot of notes on how his descriptions of the Australian Aborigines were very wrong.

On Jan 17, 2026, at 3:16 PM, quentin skrabec <qrsk...@gmail.com> wrote:



Tad Davis

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Jan 17, 2026, 5:06:32 PMJan 17
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Verne’s blind spots are a real dilemma. It’s exacerbated for me by the fact that all of my Verne work to date has revolved around audiobook narration. If something is going out with my voice, it feels like an endorsement. 

I narrated the original serial version of Martin Paz, as translated in 1852 by Anne Wilbur (publication still in process). I wasn’t previously familiar with the story. I was actually so moved by the tragic ending that I had to pause the recording session. And then I hit these two paragraphs, the last two but one in the story (I don’t have Wilbur’s text at hand, so this is my take on it):

“Nothing more was heard of the Sambo, who remained among his bloodthirsty tribes.

“The Jew Samuel kept the hundred thousand piasters from his deal. He continued profiting from exorbitant rates of interest at the expense of Lima’s aristocracy.”

Ugh. One last twist of the antisemitic knife. That was actually what started me on this quest. I was heartened to see that these two paragraphs were omitted from the 1875 revision, along with the chapter title “The Jew Everywhere a Jew.” But it was not to be. The text was still filled with comments like this:

“Few men were as vile as the Jew Samuel. He traded in everything and everywhere. He was a true descendant of the Judas who sold his master for thirty pieces of silver.”

My dismay increased as I read about the history of Peru in the years from 1829-1839, the approximate time of the story. There were very few Jews in Lima during that period, and none who exercised the kind of financial control Verne suggested. The economy was dominated by British Protestants. The odd point was that they would have been considered just as heretical as Jews; if Verne wanted an evil capitalist who was also a religious outsider, he didn’t need to look any further than that. 

The problem was, apparently, that as much as he hated British colonialism, he hated Jews more. 

So how to recapture the emotional power I originally felt at the story’s conclusion, as an audiobook narrator, without appearing to side with Verne’s ugly prejudice? How to give both of us room to speak?

The solution I’ve chosen isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I could come up with. If narration weren’t a factor, translating the text as is and surrounding it with footnotes would be a no-brainer. My choice is to translate the text as is and pair it with a version I wouldn’t mind reading to my own kids. 

The other choice would be to just drop the whole thing as a losing proposition. But I couldn’t seem to let go of that tragic ending.

Tad
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Tad Davis

On Jan 17, 2026, at 3:33 PM, 'Don Sample' via Jules Verne Forum <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



Chris Moser

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Jan 17, 2026, 5:11:16 PMJan 17
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You have to wonder about the relationship between Verne and Hetzel? About what Hetzel thought when he edited Verne’s antisemetic comments


Marie-Hélène Huet

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Jan 17, 2026, 6:45:58 PMJan 17
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I agree and I had not thought about the audiobook narration which excludes footnotes. I wonder how Martin Paz was written and what can explain the ending, except for France being antisemitic and the fact that Verne had a violently antisemitic book in his library.

 
Marie-Hélène 
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Sent: Saturday, 17 January 2026 17:06

quentin skrabec

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Jan 17, 2026, 6:55:48 PMJan 17
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Remember we all learn from the issues of Verne and his times. Don't blur the lines of a translator - a translator should be true to the author's work-- reviewers do the work of objecting to an author's work — maybe put this energy into writing about Verne's issues. Its your project so I have no right to make a hard suggestion.  What's going on at universities in banning or revising classics brothers even more than AI translations

Respectfully Quent
From: 'Marie-Hélène Huet' via Jules Verne Forum <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2026 6:45 PM
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