The Castafiore Emerald was certainly our least favorite of the Tintin books as kids. I remember consciously skipping over the book as I picked through the shelf to choose one to re-read; it just didn’t interest very much, and I think I was a little turned off by Tintin’s gaze on the cover, as though he were looking directly into the “camera.” He’s not supposed to do that…

Of course, as kids, we didn’t understand Hergé’s troubled relationship with his creation at this point in his career, and his desire to undertake an experiment in narrative to see if he could make a Tintin adventure in which nothing happened.

Re-reading the book now, I can see that it’s really a brilliant series of feints, a string of dead-ends and deceptive storylines that make us believe there’s a real crime afoot, when in the end, absolutely nothing has happened. The book has a lot of fascinating layers to offer the close reader, and is certainly much more enjoyable this time around. My favorite line, of many self-conscious bit in the book: when Snowy is introduced to a pet parrot given to Haddock by Bianca Castafiore: “I can’t stand animals who talk.”