This has to be a leading contender for the funniest post on the funniest blog on the Net - http://www.alzarqawismomsblog.com/?i=317
This one seems to be from the same person(s) and is rather good as well - http://www.keiraknightleysjaw.com/
Friday, July 14, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Some new reading...
This is one of those books that was in every shop window a while back, got great reviews and has been sitting in my 'Next' pile for a while. I'm usually suspicious of books that are supposed to be at that perfect intersection of commercial success and critical acclaim, but 'Carter Beats the Devil' is very good indeed.
I had always thought this must be a thinly-veiled takeoff on Houdini, but it's nothing of the sort. Even if you've never been a particular fan of magic or magicians, it draws you in and takes you along. And no, it's not a sword-and-sorcery type trip.
The key plot device of the opening chapters turns out to be a bit of a Macguffin, while the great secret at the heart of it may not strike us as all that important, but the book is well-written, it does move well and while others have complained of the sentimentality of the ending, Gold does make you care for the characters, so a happy ending is quite all right by me.
I had always thought this must be a thinly-veiled takeoff on Houdini, but it's nothing of the sort. Even if you've never been a particular fan of magic or magicians, it draws you in and takes you along. And no, it's not a sword-and-sorcery type trip.
The key plot device of the opening chapters turns out to be a bit of a Macguffin, while the great secret at the heart of it may not strike us as all that important, but the book is well-written, it does move well and while others have complained of the sentimentality of the ending, Gold does make you care for the characters, so a happy ending is quite all right by me.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Tintin in the land of the Critics
I was extremely happy to wake up and open this morning's Guardian to find a long, loving article on Tintin. It's always struck me as curious, bordering on bizarre, that most mentions of Tintin in the Western media has somehow always been coupled with discussion of Herge's supposed collaboration with the Nazis and the even more insubstantial taints of anti-Semitism and his cheerleading for imperialism.
Having grown up revering Tintin and everything about his universe, I have never found common ground with these criticisms. There has been enough said for and against Herge re: the charges of collaborating with the Nazis - read this. Anyone who has read 'Ottokar's Sceptre', 'Land of Black Gold' and 'The Blue Lotus', encountered characters like Mueller, Musstler and various assorted Bordurians and still makes the case that Herge was sympathetic to the Nazis is guilty at least of severe inconsistency. As for Herge returning to occupied Belgium to work, it was after King Leopold's appeal and in any case, there was an entire continent that could be charged with the same offence, beginning with the Vichy regime, something that gets discussed a whole lot less than De Gaulle's broadcasts.
The charge of anti-Semitism seems to be based on even less substantial evidence - one of his villains is called Bohlwinkel (which was Herge's idea of the name of a typical American tycoon, ironically changed from Blumenstein because he didn't want it to be perceived as anti-Jewish!) and the villanous tycoon running through the series - Rastapopoulos has a large nose!
Herge's position on empire is much more complicated. Reading 'Tintin in the Soviet Union' and the first version of 'Tintin in the Congo' is an eye-opener. 'Soviet Union' features more one-dimensional caricatures of hook-nosed 'Commisars' than you can shake a stick at - taken on its own and out of context with the rest of Herge's ouevre, it is appallingly simplistic and stuffed with every bad anti-Communist caricature there is. Bad as this might be, this only reflected the prevalent attitudes in the West in 1929, especially considering that Herge created Tintin for Le Petit Vingtieme, which was a Catholic magazine for youth, determined to stave off the 'scourge' of creeping Communism.
'Congo' is even more complicated - Herge seems to be an unapologetic cheerleader for the Belgian empire and its rule of the Congo. King Leopold the IInd's antics in the Congo, treating it as his personal bank and its inhabitants as his personal slaves, is regarded by historians as possibly the most brutal and exploitative colonial regime ever, which is some distinction given the competition available. In this book, Tintin is shown teaching adoring dark-skinned Congolese children that "King Leopold is our father" and is generally shouldering the 'White Man's Burden' in black and white. Personally, the low point of the entire Tintin series is a toss between this and the moment when Tintin goes rhino hunting - his simple, yet elegant method being to drill a hole in the rhino's hide and plant a stick of dynamite in it!
That Herge grew in his viewpoints and certainly changed his mind is not in doubt - while many of his early, almost crudely drawn books were redrawn, recoloured and almost completely rewritten in some cases, he gave up 'Soviet Union' as irretrievable and never brought out a colour version. 'Congo' was redrawn and coloured, but also rewritten drastically - the famous classroom scene has Tintin taking an innocuous addition lesson, while the rhino is saved from appearing altogether.
But there is more to Herge's attitudes than just a recanting of his positions on the Belgian empire. His denunciation of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and his clear sympathy for the Chinese runs throughout 'The Blue Lotus', 'The Broken Ear' details American and European shenanigans in Central and South America with piercing detail (including a portrayal of an international arms dealer called Sir Basil Baharoff, getting rich off both sides of any conflict, not a million miles from the real Sir Basil Zaharoff) and the last published Tintin adventure 'Tintin and the Picaros' is more in his continuing interest in the instability and pointless coups of Central/ South America.
Taken as a whole, only the most determinedly short-sighted observer can deny the essential humanism and optimism of Herge's work. Whether it's the newly moneyed Captain Haddock indignantly offering a band of Gypsies a meadow in his grounds to camp on, where the local villagefolk had banished them to a rubbish dump, Tintin taking the side of the Arabs against multinational oil companies or eventually ensuring that General Alcazar's revolution succeeds while extracting promises of not shooting the losing side en masse - as a whole, his work stands up as a positive, optimistic and above all insatiably curious look at a world that had changed out of all recognition in his own lifetime.
Having grown up revering Tintin and everything about his universe, I have never found common ground with these criticisms. There has been enough said for and against Herge re: the charges of collaborating with the Nazis - read this. Anyone who has read 'Ottokar's Sceptre', 'Land of Black Gold' and 'The Blue Lotus', encountered characters like Mueller, Musstler and various assorted Bordurians and still makes the case that Herge was sympathetic to the Nazis is guilty at least of severe inconsistency. As for Herge returning to occupied Belgium to work, it was after King Leopold's appeal and in any case, there was an entire continent that could be charged with the same offence, beginning with the Vichy regime, something that gets discussed a whole lot less than De Gaulle's broadcasts.
The charge of anti-Semitism seems to be based on even less substantial evidence - one of his villains is called Bohlwinkel (which was Herge's idea of the name of a typical American tycoon, ironically changed from Blumenstein because he didn't want it to be perceived as anti-Jewish!) and the villanous tycoon running through the series - Rastapopoulos has a large nose!
Herge's position on empire is much more complicated. Reading 'Tintin in the Soviet Union' and the first version of 'Tintin in the Congo' is an eye-opener. 'Soviet Union' features more one-dimensional caricatures of hook-nosed 'Commisars' than you can shake a stick at - taken on its own and out of context with the rest of Herge's ouevre, it is appallingly simplistic and stuffed with every bad anti-Communist caricature there is. Bad as this might be, this only reflected the prevalent attitudes in the West in 1929, especially considering that Herge created Tintin for Le Petit Vingtieme, which was a Catholic magazine for youth, determined to stave off the 'scourge' of creeping Communism.
'Congo' is even more complicated - Herge seems to be an unapologetic cheerleader for the Belgian empire and its rule of the Congo. King Leopold the IInd's antics in the Congo, treating it as his personal bank and its inhabitants as his personal slaves, is regarded by historians as possibly the most brutal and exploitative colonial regime ever, which is some distinction given the competition available. In this book, Tintin is shown teaching adoring dark-skinned Congolese children that "King Leopold is our father" and is generally shouldering the 'White Man's Burden' in black and white. Personally, the low point of the entire Tintin series is a toss between this and the moment when Tintin goes rhino hunting - his simple, yet elegant method being to drill a hole in the rhino's hide and plant a stick of dynamite in it!
That Herge grew in his viewpoints and certainly changed his mind is not in doubt - while many of his early, almost crudely drawn books were redrawn, recoloured and almost completely rewritten in some cases, he gave up 'Soviet Union' as irretrievable and never brought out a colour version. 'Congo' was redrawn and coloured, but also rewritten drastically - the famous classroom scene has Tintin taking an innocuous addition lesson, while the rhino is saved from appearing altogether.
But there is more to Herge's attitudes than just a recanting of his positions on the Belgian empire. His denunciation of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and his clear sympathy for the Chinese runs throughout 'The Blue Lotus', 'The Broken Ear' details American and European shenanigans in Central and South America with piercing detail (including a portrayal of an international arms dealer called Sir Basil Baharoff, getting rich off both sides of any conflict, not a million miles from the real Sir Basil Zaharoff) and the last published Tintin adventure 'Tintin and the Picaros' is more in his continuing interest in the instability and pointless coups of Central/ South America.
Taken as a whole, only the most determinedly short-sighted observer can deny the essential humanism and optimism of Herge's work. Whether it's the newly moneyed Captain Haddock indignantly offering a band of Gypsies a meadow in his grounds to camp on, where the local villagefolk had banished them to a rubbish dump, Tintin taking the side of the Arabs against multinational oil companies or eventually ensuring that General Alcazar's revolution succeeds while extracting promises of not shooting the losing side en masse - as a whole, his work stands up as a positive, optimistic and above all insatiably curious look at a world that had changed out of all recognition in his own lifetime.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
