The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald - Hergé

The one where nothing happens

After the personal drama that lead to the creation of Tintin in Tibet, one of Tintin's least typical but finest adventures, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Hergé had hit some kind of creative block by the time it came to writing its follow-up. If that's the case then The Castafiore Emerald is the comics' equivalent of Fellini's 8½, the artist gathering together a huge cast of familiar characters, and without having recourse to the formula of the conventional narrative format, knowingly and self-reflexively have them run through the standard old routines and mannerisms. Nothing significant seems to happen, but it's still a hugely entertaining experiment that does open-up and shed some light on the creative process.

The familiar process of running jokes are the narrative thread that links everything together in The Castafiore Emerald when the Milanese opera diva famous for her rendition of the Jewel Song from Faust ("Ah, my beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear...") arrives at short notice at Captain Haddock's Marlinspike manor, maidservant, accompanist and jewels in tow, to say nothing of journalists looking for a scoop on a potential romance between the diva and the captain. Poor Haddock has to endure great humiliation, not only on account of being laid-up in a wheelchair after an accident with a broken step on the main staircase (it's the services of stonemason Mr Bolt who is called on continually in this book rather than Mr Cutts the butcher, although of course he gets in on the act), but having his name constantly amusingly mispronounced by Bianca Castafiore (Captain Bartok, Captain Hammock, Captain Hassock).

That much, with the usual reliable contributions and misunderstandings from Jolyon Wagg, Professor Calculus and Thompson and Thomson, is familiar with any regular Tintin adventure, but it almost becomes the whole story here. Rather fascinatingly, despite Tintin being alert to dangers from a nearby gipsy encampment, unknown prowlers and suspicious behaviour within the household characters, the suspected theft of Castafiore's jewels ("Mercy, my jewels!") constantly turn out to be false alarms. Even Tintin seems bewildered that he's not jetting off across the globe on the trail of a major conspiracy (one suspects that he already has his suitcase packed for this eventuality).

One can see that Hergé is exploring the mechanics of his craft, delighting once again with the range and possibilities afforded by these characters he has created and is examining them to see how they would function in relation to everyday events. Unsurprisingly, even without yetis, gangsters, secret police, smugglers and international drug-dealer cartels to contend with, they all prove to be every bit as entertaining in "real life".

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