After attempting both new Santa Monica beer places for a special “end of a long week of jury duty” lunch — both the Fifth Amendment and West 4th/Jane were closed, despite advertising that they’d be open — I ended up at Le Pain Quotidien for lunch, where I enjoyed a tasty prosciutto sandwich and mint lemonade while I read the fifth Tintin adventure, The Blue Lotus.
The book was originally written in 1934, and then re-done in color like all of the other early books (excepting Land of the Soviets), in 1946. Many of the opening scenes were changed, which is why, as I read through it, the first few pages felt like the modern Tintin I knew, but rather quickly, the early Tintin, with the perfectly round face, appeared and continued throughout the book.
The book is a big leap from the prejudice-based descriptions and characters of the earlier books, and is actually based on a good deal of detailed research. From banners in the street to art on the walls, the level of detail in backgrounds and in larger tableaux is quite remarkable.
I always thought of most of the books, besides the treasure hunt and moon expedition pairs, as quite separate, and read them in no particular order. Reading them chronologically now makes it clear that at least so far, they do follow one another quite strictly. The opening panels of The Blue Lotus refer directly to Cigars of the Pharaoh, and we see two rare footnotes referring us to the previous adventure throughout the book. I wonder if they’re in here because the book was released much later in the U.S., to remind people of where it fell in the chronology?
The copy I read is our original copy, priced at $5.25, published in 1984. It’s still in good shape because we got it a little later than most of the others, and we didn’t re-read it much, I don’t think. It was always a strange part of the series; it looked old, unlike the modern Tintins we were used to, yet it was quite new to us, having come out after we’d already been into Tintin for some time.
Some other observations: it’s the second book in a row in which a piece of paper meant to ensure the truthfulness of the bearer has been switched out for a paper that tells whoever reads it that the bearer is crazy; Hergé must have liked that idea. Also, some of the cursing seems to be proto-Haddockian — “Seven hundred suffering Samurais” — but without Haddock’s surreal charm.
I’ll be taking the next three books on the road, as we head up to San Luis Obispo and Cambria for a wedding this weekend. I’ll be happy to take a break from jury duty for a few days, and I’m glad that my only five-day week of service is now over.
