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Tintin and the Secret of Literature
by
Tom McCarthy
Arguing that the Tintin books' characters are as strong and their plots as complex as any dreamed up by the great novelists, Tom McCarthy asks a simple question: Is Tintin literature? Taking a cue from Tintin himself — who spends much of his time tracking down illicit radio signals, entering crypts, and decoding puzzles — McCarthy suggests that we too need to �tune in” and...more
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
March 3rd 2008
by Counterpoint
(first published January 1st 2006)
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Playfully earnest and slyly sober exegesis of Hergé's classic comic series. That I love me some Tintin—ginger-bashing be damned—only heightened my appreciation for McCarthy's brilliant bit of critical stretch within. In mining the Belgian artist's low cultural graphic tales for signifiers and shared elements of the high, McCarthy exemplarily wields theory for fun, while stirring my nothing-but-fond memories of Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, Nestor, and a whole host of suppor...more
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Trenchant, witty and fascinating, Tom McCarthy's "Tintin and the Secret of Literature" is a dazzling romp through the Tintin series through the lens of postmodernism.
And of course, in true postmodern style, it's absolutely impossible to tell whether this book is entirely genuine or not. Perhaps it's neither. Or both. Whatever it is, it's fantastically well-written. McCarthy has a remarkable talent for guiding the reader through the bafflingly complex twists and turns that form his arguments - th...more
And of course, in true postmodern style, it's absolutely impossible to tell whether this book is entirely genuine or not. Perhaps it's neither. Or both. Whatever it is, it's fantastically well-written. McCarthy has a remarkable talent for guiding the reader through the bafflingly complex twists and turns that form his arguments - th...more
A playful work of literary criticism, in which McCarthy considers literary themes in the Tintin novels. If you want to read this, it is probably useful to have a good working novel of the Tintin cannon. McCarthy introduces a number of the themes which he explorers in more depth in his Booker prize shortlisted novel"C", and it is interesting to see how he develops these ideas. In particular, his brief summary of Freud's Wolf Man case sheds considerable light on Key elements of the plot of his cur...more
A very intriguing work, to say the least. For anyone who spent years studying the humanities, attempting to draw links from the most intangible evidence in film and literature, this book will instantly appeal to their cheeky side. A lot of it is clearly based on the old scholar's mantra of "choose a position first, find the evidence later", and I'm sure that if you took any author's oeuvre of an equivalent size, you'd be able to find a similar number of connections.
However, I honestly don't mean...more
However, I honestly don't mean...more
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1590875.html
McCarthy looks at Hergé's adventures of Tintin and finds all kinds of hidden material - tracking recurrent themes through the entire œuvre, including such issues as sepulchres, mirrors, castration, and the true and incredible meaning of the Castafiore Emerald.
I was particularly impressed, as I always am in books like this, by the relation made by McCarthy between Hergé's work and his life. Remi (to use his real name) shifted uneasily from his pre-war ra...more
McCarthy looks at Hergé's adventures of Tintin and finds all kinds of hidden material - tracking recurrent themes through the entire œuvre, including such issues as sepulchres, mirrors, castration, and the true and incredible meaning of the Castafiore Emerald.
I was particularly impressed, as I always am in books like this, by the relation made by McCarthy between Hergé's work and his life. Remi (to use his real name) shifted uneasily from his pre-war ra...more
It was a joy to go back to the Tintin stories and look at them through a new lens. The earlier chapters here, regarding political contexts and especially the roles transmission, (mis)reception, etc. play in the stories were most compelling to me. Some of the later sections (the Castafiore's Clit chapter, in particular) felt a bit strained at times: just as fascinating, but a bit further from the text, which wasn't a problem but it did make them feel a bit less "urgent" (for lack of a better word...more
1 like · like · see review
This book is really dense. I'm not sure so far that I agree with everything the author implies about the meanings behind Tintin, but it's pretty interesting to see the series dissected by a skilled hand.
Update after finishing: I guess I am not a scholarly philosopher at heart. As stated before, I can SEE how these interpretations of Tintin could be made, but I'm not sure I BELIEVE them. I suppose part of philosophy is seeing through overt intention to subconscious meaning, though? I definitely w...more
Update after finishing: I guess I am not a scholarly philosopher at heart. As stated before, I can SEE how these interpretations of Tintin could be made, but I'm not sure I BELIEVE them. I suppose part of philosophy is seeing through overt intention to subconscious meaning, though? I definitely w...more
Although I enjoyed reading about my favorite childhood heroes (Bianca Castafiore, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus and all the rest), I don't think this book achieved more than an application of post-structuralist theory to a comic book. Which is cool and all, if that's what you set out to do, but it seems that the author had grander ambitions: to explain key truths of literature through the lens of Tintin. Sure, Herge showed how ancestral trauma manifests itself in different generations, and...more
The most intelligent book on Tintin by an Anglophone. Thought-provoking throughout and persuasive for the most part, it begins to lose its focus in the final third of the book.
For anyone who grew up reading TinTin (in French, English or both) this is an intelligent romp through the narrative threads with a critical eye.
Very readable and somewhat entertaining but some of the arguments were really stretching it
The book ruined my childhood appreciation of Tintin and Herge.
Interesting ft review; bit off color
He's right.
I guess it's better to overthink things than underthink them.
Be warned: if you read this, you will never look at a Tintin book in the same way again. If you're willing to take that risk, you'll discover symbolism, allegory and hidden treasure beyond anything uncovered by the boy reporter. With chapters titled 'Gling, Bling, Cling' and 'Castafiore's Clit' it's hard to tell how seriously the author is taking his thesis, but whether or not you agree with his conclusions you'll be taken on a fascinating treasure hunt through the pages of the Tintin books and...more
Sometimes a cigar is a cigar.
This book was an attempt at Tintin scholarship (I think), but devolved into pseudo-academic navel-gazing very quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love academic navel-gazing, but I dislike the leaps of logic Mr. McCarthy wanted the reader to make with him. It wasn't Tuten-bad, but it was over-intellectualizing a comic. There were bits to glean of interest, but overall it stretched too many times to be taken seriously and came off sounding ridiculous.
This book was an attempt at Tintin scholarship (I think), but devolved into pseudo-academic navel-gazing very quickly. Don't get me wrong, I love academic navel-gazing, but I dislike the leaps of logic Mr. McCarthy wanted the reader to make with him. It wasn't Tuten-bad, but it was over-intellectualizing a comic. There were bits to glean of interest, but overall it stretched too many times to be taken seriously and came off sounding ridiculous.
My, this was...interesting. At times it was insightful or at least presented interesting patterns and tropes within the Tintin books - beyond a certain point I thought it crossed over into dubious over-analysis, though. Too much of the Derrida technique of playing around with ambiguous phrases until you can give anything any meaning.
Jul 28, 2008
Brent Legault
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
sapristis, mille milliards
McCarthy manhandles poor little TinTin with the help of Derrida, Debord, Freud, Serres, Barthes, Shakespeare, Bataille, and Baudelaire. He does so without ever boring the reader or rather this reader. His style is LitCrit Lite and I appreciated it especially when I didn't agree with his insights.
I grew up on the Tintin series so this 2007 work was great fun to read. McCarthy is dedicated and exhaustive in uncovering the 'true' meanings of the works, though I don't feel it's necessarily meant to be taken seriously.
A bit of a stretch on most references... sure, and interesting take, but I am unconvinced on the validity of his arguments. Was an interesting, quick, read nonetheless.
This guy is scary smart. Would have give it five stars, but I haven't read that much Tintin. So why did I even pick this up in the first place? I'm a nerd.....
Lit crit account of the Tintin stories. Implausibly treats the absurdly boring Castiafore Emerald as an essential installment in the Tintin corpus.
Sly, clever, smart, and surprisingly persuasive. I've loved the Tintin books since I was a kid; this lends new meaning to them.
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Tom McCarthy — “English fiction’s new laureate of disappointment” (Time Out, September 2007) — is a writer and artist. He was born in 1969 and lives in a tower-block in London. Tom grew up in Greenwich, south London, and studied English at New College, Oxford. After a couple of years in Prague in the early 1990s, he lived in Amsterdam as literary editor of the local Time Out, and later worked in B...more
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