Katya's Bookshelf

I spend a lot of time thinking about books, writing, and what it means for an artist to have produced more than one, or two, or ten or twenty or forty books.

The Tintin series is one that I have read and reread since I was a child. Hergé, the author (and artist) produced work over a period of more than fifty years. He's a fascinating figure—not least because, in his later years, he was not at all shy of making brutal assessments of the quality of some of his earlier works.

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Tintin and the Picaros

by Hergé

Part of the interest in reading Tintin is thinking about how Hergé's politics changed over time—and, frankly, his changing politics are something that allow him to be still readable. Hergé, over time, grew to a place where he publicly disavowed his earlier racial ideas.

His rejection of his early racism (he described Tintin in America (1931) as an "error of his youth) allow a reader to see this series as Hergé himself saw them: a product of a specific time, place and specific parochial upbringing—work created by a writer who became more politically sophisticated as he gained in years and wisdom.

(re) Reading Tintin's adventures with the Picaros directly after revisiting The Broken Ear is a case in point. Hergé did not stop skewering the political culture of South America, but between 1937 (Broken Ear) and 1976 (Picaros), there had been great changes politically in the world. Hergé's later work acknowledges these changes. Picaros is set in a far subtler, nuanced world—though, as in the earlier book, Hergé holds to the view that leadership, in the imagined South American country of San Theodoros, has little to no impact on the general populace (note the unchanged lot of those living on garbage heaps near the airport, as Tintin, Haddock et al fly in and out of the country).

This said—the verve of the adventures, the delight in clever (or stupid!) twists, the pleasure of watching familiar characters interact, and the humor are all there. Perhaps my greatest pleasure in the Tintins is that they are a delight to reread. Picaros counts, if not as my favorite Tintin, as one of the most tightly written and best fun.

The Jolly Follies are a brilliant touch.