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| Source: http://kj1241.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-TinTin-155744061 |
But there are other, deeper, darker signals embedded within the books themselves, and for noticing these I have to thank the novelist Tom McCarthy, whose book Tintin and the Secret of Literature, using the astonishing findings of Hergé's biographers (and subsequent interpretations by the French writer Serge Tisseron), touches on an almost incredible story: that the whole Tintin series is a consistent, creative, psychological working-out of Hergé's family secret: that he may well be related to the King of Belgium. A visiting VIP – maybe the king, he did visit – would often pass by the chateau where Hergé's grandmother worked as a maid; one such visit resulted in her pregnancy, the results being his uncles (twins who, dressed identically in bowler hats, suits, and carrying canes, are so obviously the Thomson Twins that no doubt as to the link with them is possible). His grandmother was quickly paired off with the gardener; his subsequent grandfather. McCarthy can give a better account of this, and the subsequent coded resurfacings of this story himself than I can in precis; suffice it to say that his book is one of the few critical works that can truly be called "mind-blowing", and that no adult interpretation and indeed appreciation of the books can now be considered complete without having read it.
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I also wonder at the agenda of the Jewish film maker who made Schindler's List supposedly being such a huge Tintin fan given the character and its creator both being pretty cosy with the Nazis and the Axis countries, let alone the delightful Jewish stereotyping throughout the books. One often sees the Congo masterwork demonised, but there is no Jewish character in the whole of the Tintin canon who would be out of place in Der Sturmer.
I mean I love Tintin, but then I'm not Jewish, Congolese or Serbian. If I was I can totally imagine being royally pissed off by its hilarity-inducing* racism. The height of the art only makes the racism worse.
