Books & Poetry

In this literary investigation of Tintin, Tom McCarthy eschews the lay psychology routinely paraded by journos about the cartoon hero’s creator, Georges Remi, for a fascinating look at the work. This is definitely one for the fans: so detailed are McCarthy’s references that I found myself reading this slim volume a handful of pages at a time.

Refracted through the ideas of Barthes, Baudelaire, Derrida and Freud, McCarthy’s text conjures magnificent insights on such recurring themes as diamonds, tombs and tobacco. As in the books, Captain Haddock proves the most fascinating figure: tracing a family rumour that the Remis were illegitimate descendants of an aristocrat, possibly the king, McCarthy finds similar hints in Haddock’s background.

‘Bianca Castafiore has been “engaged” by the newspapers to many men… Has she fucked them?’ he asks in a chapter entitled ‘Castafiore’s Clit’ (not the kind of language you find in Hergé’s originals, nor Frederic Tuten’s novel ‘Tintin in the New World’). McCarthy’s not bad on the illustrations either. He spots prototype Haddocks in ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’, the book that preceded the captain’s first appearance proper, and rightly poins out a beautiful frame I had previously overlooked in Hergé’s chef-d’oeuvre ‘The Castafiore Emerald’.

It’s a shame McCarthy doesn’t go further at the end, tracing Hergé’s literary inheritors (Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s ‘The Nautical Chart’ springs to mind) or more recent resonances (he has a fascination with the word ‘kar’ – Syldavian for ‘king’ – and the original Turkish title for Orhan Pamuk’s ‘Snow’, which features a hero called Ka, visiting a town called Kars). But the success of McCarthy’s experiment resonates. He sends you back to the books with renewed enjoyment and a refreshed eye.