Hergé: Red Rackham’s Treasure

“Red Rackham’s Treasure” is the immediate sequel to “Secret of the Unicorn," and though it cannot compare in literary genius or narrative impact, it is a worthy successor. So many years earlier, a ship belonging to naval legend Sir Francis Haddock was raided and taken by the notorious pirate Red Rackham. During the action, however, the pirate’s ship sunk, so Rackham made the “Unicorn” his new flagship. When Sir Francis escaped and blew up the “Unicorn,” the pirate’s horde of treasure sank with it. Now, many years later, intrepid journalist Tintin and Sir Francis’ descendant Captain Haddock work to recover the treasure and make their fortune.

The book is particularly notable for introducing the greatest of all absent-minded professors in the Tintin series: Professor Cuthbert Calculus. He is brought into the tale as the inventor of a submarine that will allow them to avoid detection by the sharks common to the area. Mostly deaf, and rather careless in his treatment of Haddock’s supply of liquor, he is always one to cause tension on board, especially when he converses with the Spoonerism-prone Thompson twins. Yet in the end, Calculus demonstrates his considerable good nature and child-like innocence by buying Haddock’s ancestral estate for him, using the government check he received for the submarine patent.

“Red Rackham’s Treasure” brings together almost all of the major heroes of the “Adventures of Tintin” for the first time. Tintin discovers the manuscripts pointing to the treasure; Captain Haddock commands the ship that will take them there; Calculus manages to stow aboard for his own reasons; and the twins Thomson and Thompson are brought on board at the last minute, to protect them from the prequel’s villain Max Bird. Bird is never heard of again, so this was pretty clearly an excuse to get the twins aboard, but I can hardly complain since they look so ridiculous in their attempts to act and dress as “old sea dogs.”

The settings are also pretty spectacular here. We quickly move from the piers of a Belgian port city to the Caribbean sea, then to a tropical island and (best of all) to an underwater vista comparable to Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” before returning to the grandeur of Marlinspike Hall. This is one of the most colorful books in the Tintin series, and one of the most delightful for young readers, including myself when I first picked up this book.

The genius of this story consists in its ability to subvert our expectations. There are so many false positives – those elusive moments when we are all but certain they’ve found the treasure – and false alarms contained in this adventure; it’s quite impressive. Moreover, when the treasure is actually found [spoiler alert… darn, too late], it is almost an afterthought. The journey is the thing, along with all the incidental discoveries along the way. The real ending occurs when Tintin and Captain Haddock put on an exhibit at Marlinspike Hall displaying their various finds during the expedition: a statue of the loud-mouthed Sir Francis Haddock made by natives of the island where he was marooned, the figurehead of the “Unicorn,” and of course the three miniature sailing ships that figured largely in the previous book “Secret of the Unicorn.” The lesson is twofold: treasure is always closer to home than we think, and the real treasure of historical artifacts isn’t in their monetary value, but in what they can teach of about the past. On that note of nauseatingly cheesy life lessons worthy of a 50’s sitcom, I will end.

Hergé: The Secret of the Unicorn

“The Secret of the Unicorn” is generally considered to be the best comic book in “The Adventures of Tintin,” both by fans and by its creator Hergé. It is not surprising, then, that this is the story Steven Spielberg chose to adapt to screen. Along with its sequel “Red Rackham’s Treasure,” this comic book comprises one of the most enjoyable romps in the entire series.

In narrative terms, this is probably the best and most coherent books in the series. The book opens in a marketplace, where Tintin meets the Thompson twins. The detectives are investigating a series of pick-pockets, but when they stop to buy a number of canes, they discover their own wallets had been stolen. Tintin, meanwhile, stumbles across a sailing-ship model and decides to buy it for Captain Haddock, just before two other antique collectors attempt to purchase it as well. When Tintin presents it to Haddock, he realizes that it’s identical to the sailing ship in the background of a portrait of his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock.

This reminds Haddock of a sea-chest that belonged to his ancestor gathering dust in the attic, where he finds a cutlass (by which he terrifies his neighbors and landlady) and Sir Francis Haddock’s journal, in which he relates a sea battle with the dread pirate Roberts… er, Red Rackham. The panels alternate between Captain Haddocks’ dramatic storytelling and re-enactment of the events, and Sir Francis Haddocks’ experience of the events themselves. The effect is dazzling. Captain Haddock fights with the cutlass and his finger for a pistol, only for the next panel to show Sir Francis Haddock fighting in the same stance with a cutlass and an actual pistol.  When Sir Francis duels the terrifying Diego the Dreadful, Hergé depicts the pirate’s demise via Captain Haddock’s skewering of a cushion. These pages are a highlight of the comic book, and in my opinion of the series as a whole.

Returning to the modern day, Tintin discovers that his model ship was stolen and his apartment ransacked. He suspects one of the other collectors, but soon realizes the man's innocence when he finds that the collector owns an identical miniature that was also stolen. Tintin had purchased one in a matching set of sailing ship models. He soon discovers that there is a scrap of parchment hidden in the mast of each model, with a message from Sir Francis Haddock to his sons: the location of Red Rackham’s treasure.

The story proceeds with murders, mayhems, and pick-pocketing. Tintin is, predictably enough, kidnapped by the villains, questioned for information he could not possibly possess, makes a daring and clever escape, and ultimately discovers his kidnapper’s insidious plan.

The ending of the comic book is truly delightful. It turns out that, while everyone was busily trying to gather the three parchments, the serial pick-pocketer was stealing their wallets with those parchments. When Tintin and the Thompson detectives finally catch up with the man – Aristides Silk, civil servant and kleptomaniac – they discover his alphabetized collection of wallets, and Tintin finds the remaining scraps of parchment.

Before he leaves to share that discovery with Captain Haddock, Tintin reminds the detectives to look under the letter "T" in Silk's wallet collection. The detectives' realization that the entire section had been filled with wallets belonging to them... I still laugh when I read it.

It turns out that when each scrap of parchment is held together to the light, it reveals a message, along with a latitude and longitude where the pirate’s treasure would be found. But that story waits for the sequel: “Red Rackham’s Treasure.”

This comic book is probably the best in the series, both in literary terms and in narrative heft. The recurring motif of pick-pocketing neatly book-ends the central story, and there is an impressive diversity of settings even though the story occurs almost entirely within a modern city. The back-story of Captain Haddock’s ancestor is brilliantly written and sketched, and it is a true highlight of the entire series. Most of all, the story dovetails perfectly with its sequel: the works are distinct in style and in their setting, but coincide splendidly in narrative tension and dramatic movement.

Hergé: The Crab with the Golden Claws

Today in Tintin Week we turn to “The Crab with the Golden Claws.”  As in so many stories, Tintin travels to an exotic foreign land and unmasks an international gang of professional bad dudes. This tale is particularly notable for introducing Captain Haddock, who will be a constant companion for Tintin in all subsequent adventures. “The Crab with the Golden Claws” is one of three Tintin books that is being drawn upon for the upcoming film “The Secret of the Unicorn,” directed by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

The story begins in Belgium. Tintin is taking his dog for a walk, and Snowy sticks his head into a garbage bin and gets it stuck in a tin of crab meat. They meet Thomson & Thompson in a bar, and the twins tell them about their recent investigation. Tintin realizes that one of the pieces of evidence the twins had gathered was a scrap of paper taken from the very tin can Snowy had found earlier. This sets them up for a wild ride: the name of a ship, the “Karaboudjan,” is written on the scrap, and when Tintin goes aboard to investigate he is kidnapped and imprisoned in the ship’s cellar by the first mate.

He escapes the cellar, only to meet the captain, an arrogant and alcoholic clod. I later grew fond of Captain Haddock, but in this tale he is maddeningly obtuse and gets in the way of everything. Perhaps this book is one of the reasons alcohol never appealed to me. I’m sure my decision had nothing to do with the white wine I accidentally drank when I was eight, because my grandmother had stored it in an apple juice carton. That wasn’t traumatic at all.

Anyway, Tintin and Haddock escape on the longboat, at least until Haddock burns the oars to keep warm. Then they’re shot at by a seaplane, but thanks to Tintin’s ridiculous ability to swim several hundred yards underwater while fully clothed and wearing  a raincoat, they capture the plane and fly it to Spain. Only they crash-land in the middle of the Sahara. Pity. Haddock, thirsting for a drink, hallucinates that Tintin is a giant bottle of whiskey. He almost suffocates Tintin, but is knocked out, courtesy of Snowy’s ability to wield a camel femur. They wake up in a desert outpost, having been picked up by a sentry patrolling the area, and are soon on their way to “Bagghar, a large Moroccan port.”

While drunkenly carousing the harbor walks, Haddock stumbles across the Karaboudjan, recently repurposes as the “Djebel Amilah.” He is kidnapped shortly thereafter for the commotion he caused. Tintin tries to track him, but fails. However, he discovers that Omar Ben Salaad, one of the wealthiest merchants in Bagghar, is the distributor of the tins of crab meat, and is the suspected head of a gang of drug runners that uses those tins for smuggling opium.

Tintin infiltrates the gang’s headquarters – Hergé clever alludes to the philosopher Diogenes who lived in a barrel, for a hint as to the secret passageway – and rescues Haddock. They escape, they are pursued, the police are called in, and Tintin triumphs. He returns home to Belgium and listens to tales of his exploits on the radio, and discovers that Captain Haddock has also returned, and is lecturing (without the least bit of irony) on “drink, the sailor’s worst enemy.” Unfortunately, he takes ill after he consumes a glass of water when he had thought it would be whiskey.

This is not the best of the Tintin adventures -- indeed, it is somewhat unremarkable. This was partly by design -- this was one of the first of the Tintin comics published after the Nazis invaded Belgium, and Hergé was forced to set aside his more controversial and politically oriented stories for lighter fare. But the locales are splendid, the story is coherent, and the art and the writing are top-notch. Not to mention that there should be some recognition for the first appearance of Tintin's enduring friend and companion-who-isn't-a-dog.

Hergé: Cigars of the Pharaoh

Today in Tintin Week, we're featuring a review of "The Cigars of the Pharaoh," the fourth published comic book in "The Adventures of Tintin" and an immediate prequel to "The Blue Lotus." Though it is not as well known (or as highly regarded) as its sequel, "Cigars" marks the crucial transitional period in Herge's writing, as he transitions from stereotyped location-driven fantasies to highly researched action-adventure escapades.

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“Cigars” begins as Tintin is returning from a cruise vacation that had taken him from Shanghai in China to Port-Said in Egypt. He meets the deliciously daft Sophocles Sarcophagus, who shows him a papyrus with the secret location of the lost tomb of Pharoah Kih-Oskh. Dr. Sarcophagus is an early version of the absent-minded professor type that would ultimately lead Hergé to invent Professor Cuthbert Calculus, first introduced in “Red Rackham’s Treasure” and a regular recurring character in later stories.

Tintin is also investigated and arrested by Detectives Thomson and Thompson – this is their first appearance in the “Adventures," besides a brief showing that was ret-conned into “Tintin in the Congo." Their presence here is very different here than in later stories.  Where Hergé would ultimately make them laughably dense – often using them to parody European stereotypes of foreign cultures – in this adventure the twins are at least moderately efficient, and save Tintin’s life on several occasions (though they are of course outmatched whenever they try to arrest him).

Tintin also encounters Mr. Rastapopoulos on the cruise ship, and the set up for this character is brilliant, almost worthy of Hergé’s most mature work. On the ship Rastapopoulos is introduced as a random uncivil clod, much like other one-off characters, but a later random encounter in the desert reveals him to be a wealthy filmmaker who is friendly to Tintin. Their initial tension overcome, the reader is made to feel confident in Rastapopoulos’ character, notwithstanding the frequent (and sometimes glaring) hints that he isn’t trustworthy. Only by the end of “The Blue Lotus” is his true nature revealed: Rastapopoulos is the head of the international ring of opium smugglers and in general a Very Bad Man. He becomes a recurring villain in many of Tintin’s later adventures, such as “The Red Sea Sharks.”

The comic book is set in three primary locations: Egypt, Arabia, and India. Unfortunately, while these locations are depicted in a more realistic manner than Hergé’s earlier works, they seem to occupy a world in which Arabia borders the Indus River. At one point, Tintin flies away from a (distinctly Arab) desert city, only to find himself within the hour flying over a (distinctly Indian) jungle with (lions) tigers (and bears). Oh my. Needless to say, the transitions are a bit iffy.

As for the plot, it is borne on so many escapades and plot devices that description is bland even when reading is a thrill. Suffice it to say that there are Bad Guys, that Tintin meets these Bad Guys and interferes with their Insidious Plans without realizing the trouble he’d gotten himself into, and ultimately brings said Bad Guys to justice with wit, charm, and an ample helping of awesome. What more could you possibly ask for?

Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Identity

"The Bourne Identity" was published in 1980, and soon secured a reputation as one of the best action-adventure novels ever published. It was adapted to film in short order: a television miniseries by 1988, and a silver-screen blockbuster by 2002 (which is how I first learned of it).  Its sequels also received Hollywood treatment, with "The Bourne Supremacy" released in 2004, and "The Bourne Ultimatum" in 2007. In 2006, it was rated by Publisher's Weekly as the second best spy thriller novel of all time, behind only the blockbuster "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold." This novel also marked a first for me, since it was my first attempt to go through a full novel in an audio-book format.

First things first: this novel bears little resemblance to the films. Besides the premise -- Jason Bourne is a former assassin and retrograde amnesiac who's trying to recover his memories -- there is little resemblance between the narratives.  Some of the names remain (Bourne, Marie St. Jacques, Alexander Conklin, etc.) but their personalities have been scrubbed: Marie St. Jacques is no longer a professional economist from Canada, but seems to be instead a wandering French bohemian without roots or family. I suppose economists just aren't sexy enough for the big screen. Moreover, many characters don't even appear in the film, most notably the primary antagonist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (alias Carlos "the Jackal," who was apparently a terrorist in real life).

The first thing I noticed about this novel, perhaps because it was being read aloud, was the quality of the descriptions given.  Ludlum is truly gifted at depicting atmosphere, the settings of his plot. Throughout the book I felt as though I were participating in an authentic French (or Swiss) cultural experience. The back-story is likewise detailed and rich, ranging from covert missions in Vietnam to assassination rings in France to intelligence agencies in America. Ludlum maintains a fairly intense momentum throughout the narrative, especially in Bourne's movement from almost total ignorance to a fair degree of self-knowledge.

However, it is precisely in this movement of the narrative that the novel develops problems.  First, I felt that too much time and effort were spent on Bourne's ignorance and confusion.  While it was a useful vehicle for presenting new information and filling in the back-story, the plot device grew old. After a certain point I just stopped counting how many times the novel resorted to Bourne saying or thinking "I recall something, it strikes me as familiar, but I don't remember; please explain what it is." Phrases and images, from an unremembered past or from his months recovering with the alocholic Dr. Washburn, were repeated almost ad nauseum. Many fragments of memory were given without letting the audience know their significance, which I suppose would be useful for priming a shocking revelation towards the end, but the references continued even after their meaning was revealed.

I was also bothered by the novel's tendency to erect and dismantle the obligatory rabbit-holes at an alarming rate. It's not possible to move from amnesia to complete self-knowledge without at least a few false starts in between, and these could have been quite useful for setting up twists and unexpected reveals along the way. But most of these red herrings were essentially non-starters, quickly dismissed as new facts become available or (worse) already known by the reader to be fallacious due to previously disclosed information. Using false starts for twists and third-act reveals would require that they be preserved for some length of time, but the author did not seem to be patient enough to let these misconceptions play out.

The greatest failing of the novel, however, is in the ending. Despite excellent pacing throughout, the story falters pretty pathetically towards the end of the novel, and the tone borders on incoherence. After setting up all of the innumerable difficulties lying between Bourne and his safe return to America or to his former life, the author seems content to sweep all of those previous difficulties aside with a wave of his hand. Thus, 'shoot-on-sight' protocol notwithstanding, the untrained Marie St. Jacques is able to contact the Canadian embassy without difficulty, find a receptive audience, tell her story, return home, and move the entire American bureaucratic apparatus to save her One True Love before his untimely demise later that afternoon!

Likewise, Alexander Conklin, Bourne's nemesis within the American intelligence community, who had heard the amnesia story from Bourne personally, and tried to kill him on the same occasion, is at the last minute and on very unconvincing grounds brought to realize his mistake. What's worse, his transformation is so complete that he ends up acting as an almost paternal figure, and lets Carlos the assassin escape from the trap Bourne had set up in order to save Bourne's life. This was not only contrary to the nature of the character (Conklin was the hard-nose C.I.A. man who had been using Bourne as the bait to catch Carlos, after all) but also the conventions and expectations of the plot. After all was said and done, how is it that the villain Carlos remains at large, with the merest glimpse of his face being our big payoff? Carlos isn't even the subject of the sequel; his storyline is concluded two novels later in "The Bourne Ultimatum." So, to sum up this ending: obstacles are summarily swept aside without explanation, largely helpless characters suddenly develop the ability to work miracles, sworn enemies are reconciled at a glance, and the villain gets away. What's up with this?

The horrid ending notwithstanding, "The Bourne Identity" is still a worthwhile read, and was at times even tremendously enjoyable. The momentum is excellent, the plot is involving, and the imagery is to die for, sometimes literally. I think it's possible to appreciate the many layers of complexity and difficulty the author set up, even while recognizing his inability to satisfactorily resolve them in the end. If you're looking for resolution, though, you'll have better luck with the movies.