A nice nod to Jules Verne, “Voyage of the Nautiscaphe and its chimney in the trench of the New Hebrides” was born from the imagination of Marilou Rytz, Alice Bottarelli and Stéphanie Cadoret. With a role play and a rainy November afternoon as a starting point.
1867, Wellington Harbour, New Zealand. Five people are about to board the Nautiscaphe, an epic steam-punk submarine. Their objective: to dive into the heart of the ocean abysses and discover new species. The journey will last several months and their adventures are described thanks to three logbooks kept by a naturalist, a doctor and a young cook who hides his game well.
Role play
Writing a work with six hands is not commonplace in the world of literature. As for “Voyage du Nautiscaphe”, everything started from a collaborative writing workshop organized four years ago by Alice Bottarelli, with five other authors. Using a role play, they imagine a short story around a submarine at the end of the 19th century.
This was sent to the Prix de l’Ailleurs (science fiction literary prize) without success, because it was not successful enough. At the same time, the Presses Inverses editions expressed their interest in this project and of the six initial authors, only Alice Bottarelli, Stéphanie Cadoret and Marilou Rytz would like to continue the adventure.
A nod to Jules Verne
Together, the three writers decide to construct the framework of the story and to appoint one of the narrators of the story. “Quickly, we said to ourselves that we were going to take charge of a character and give him a voice,” confided Marilou Rytz to the QWERTZ literary podcast on December 5. We also said to ourselves that it would be interesting to play with mediums. This is why we have a logbook, a journal and an observation log.”
Often I think I’m running out of air. I wake up with a start, bumping against the upper bunk. The air is so saturated I almost lost my sense of smell
In “Voyage du Nautiscaphe”, each character brings a certain vision of humanity: desire for conquest, curiosity, fascination for machines, empathy. Without forgetting the famous Nautiscaphe, who is also a character in his own right.
The authors recognize that Jules Verne and his adventures were a source of inspiration for their work. Moreover, when looking at the cover of the book we immediately think of that of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, as well as those of the New Year books of the time.
Between truth and imagination
A trunk in which we find manuscripts, a chimney several kilometers long, a bathypith (a sort of glass bell allowing one to explore the shallows), in “Voyage du Nautiscaphe” the three authors have let their imagination overflow. This did not prevent them from carefully documenting sailor beliefs and certain words used by the Maori people.
We played on uchrony, which is a genre of science fiction where we change the historical destiny of things. We also had fun with the steam-punk aesthetic, where steam plays the role of central energy
Not content with navigating between the concerns of the five passengers of the submarine, the reading of “Voyage du Nautiscaphe” is also embellished with the magnificent watercolors of Stéphanie Cadoret. Seascapes, fish, algae, machines make this work a great moment of escape.
Sarah Clement
Marilou Rytz, Alice Bottarelli, Stéphanie Cadoret, “Voyage of the Nautiscaphe and its chimney in the New Hebrides trench”, ed. Presses Inverses, November 2024.
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