Tintin Forums

Do yo know that Hotel Cornavin in Geneva regulary receives mail for Professeur Tournesol (Calcullus in English)?
Maybe he'll be back one day to pick it up!

first of all, hats off to the great site. secondly, i´m sorry if this has been discussed before, but i didn´t find anything similar with "search"-option and since lot´s of people on this and some other threads i´ve seen seem to be unsure, i´ll have to say the following:

are you absolutely sure that tintin lives in moulinsart/marlinspike? unless finnish translations are completely wrong (which i very much doubt), there´s plenty of evidence to support what jock123 suggested earlier in this thread: that tintin lives in rue de labrador even after "le tresor de rackham le rouge" and only visits moulinsart every now and then:

1. in seven crystal balls, page 2: tintin first rings the doorbell and then asks nestor if captain is home, surely he´d use his keys if he lived there? and on the next page captain asks tintin why he came to moulinsart. and also on page 17, when walking out of the theatre haddock says to tintin: "i´ll drop you home and then go back to moulinsart." also on the same page tintin opens the door to the dupon(d)t´s and that´s clearly a flat, not moulinsart.

2. in the land of the black gold dupon(d)ts visit tintin (p. 3) and again it´s flat (which very much looks like rue de labrador, compared to la secret de la licorne, p. 35)

3. in destination moon (p. 1) nestor welcomes haddock back to moulinsart, and also says hello to tintin (don´t know how to explain this in english but every time nestor speaks to tintin he seems to address tintin as a visitor, not a habitant of moulinsart, whereas haddock is always "sir" or "master")

4.l´affaire tournesol doesn´t seem to give any evidence of tintin´s address, except for the already mentioned nestor´s way of always addressing haddock as a owner of the house, and never speaking to tintin in such a way. also on the page 14 when t&h are going to tournesol´s laboratory t asks h for the key.

5. coke en stock is the first book that indicates tintin is actually living in moulinsart. first of all there´s no sign of his own flat, and abdullah comes to live in moulinsart, the letter from his father is addressed to tintin and in the letter the emir asks tintin for hospitality (although this could be because the emir doesn´t think that an average flat is good enough for his son)

6. tintin au tibet seems to give the strongest evidence that tintin indeed lives in rue de labrador and sometimes visits moulinsart (maybe for relatively long periods of time): on page 3 haddock says to tintin: "look at the envelope. it´s been traveling for long. it came from your home to moulinsart, from where nestor has send it here" (ie. the hotel in swizerland).

7. castafiore emeralds seems to indicate that tintin actually lives in moulinsart, but i think he´s again only visiting. no strong evidence, but on page 58 tintin asks haddock if there´s any woodcutter (or whatever the word is in english) living in the village. tintin seems like a smart guy who usually remembers faces and names (except endaddine akass´s voice but that´s a different story), and to me it´d seem odd that tintin wouldn´t know the villagers if he was living there himself.

8. maybe around the time of castafiore emeralds and vol 714 tintin moved permanently to moulinsart. vol 714 doesn´t give a hint about tintin´s address, but picaros seems to be the first book that clearly indicates that tintin is permanently living in moulinsart. on page 21 haddock says to tournesol (naturally spicing with few expletives): "tintin? he made a wise decision by staying in moulinsart". and again on page 62 haddock says: "i´ll be very happy when we´re (all) back in moulinsart" to what tintin replies: "me too, captain"

9. what i can remember of the text in l´alph-art (official version) tintin seems to be permanent resident of moulinsart, although i don´t know for sure because it hasn´t been translated into finnish and i can´t read the french version myself.

conclusion: i think that tintin definitely has his rue de labrador flat until the tintin au tibet and probably until the castafiore emeralds, but from the destination moon onwards he´s partly living in the city, partly in moulinsart, although there´s no evidence of rue de labrador flat after the tintin au tibet.

mondrian

Thanks for this most detailed and factual study...

I have some rare American translations of King Ottokar's Sceptre, Red Rackham's Treasure and Destination Moon which were published in the US in the 1950's.
These books feature a different English translation than the editions currently available.
It is interesting to note that while the British translators put the action in England, the American translators put the action in New York!
For example, Marlinspike or Moulinsart is called "Hudson Manor," and when Tintin returns from Syldavia in King Ottokar's Sceptre, the flight's destination is New York City!

I believe that Marlinspike is in Wallonia, in Belgium, not England.
For starters, automobile traffic moves on the right.
Many of the cars are American models, which were generally only common in Francophone countries at the time (notice that in Khmed and Borduria, the cars are European models). Also, when Tintin and Haddock fly to Geneva in The Calculus Affair, they fly on Sabena, the Belgian national airline.

KurviTasch
I believe that Marlinspike is in Wallonia, in Belgium, not England.

Marlinspike is positively in England - Moulinsart is in Belgium! ;-)

KurviTasch American translations of King Ottokar's Sceptre, Red Rackham's Treasure and Destination Moon which were published in the US in the 1950's

You may enjoy reading the article about the Golden Press editions on this site (found here)

One rather confusing thing in the Golden Press version of The Secret of the Unicorn is that Sir Francis is described as serving in "the navy of Louis XIV" although the Unicorn is flying the British Union Jack flag.

The Methuen editions - which have the Unicorn as part of King Charles II's fleet - also have the Union Jack in early editions but I think later ones use the original Fleurs De Lys ensign.

Harrock n roll :
The Methuen editions - which have the Unicorn as part of King Charles II's fleet - also have the Union Jack in early editions but I think later ones use the original Fleurs De Lys ensign.

My '94 edition of Unicorn features the Union Jack, but in the Making of Tintin book it's replaced by a plain blue flag - I think the flowers were just removed. Does anyone have a recent (Egmont) printing to see which flag is used now ?

I have an Egmont edition, actually, and it also uses the Union Jack.

My battered 1977 Methuen paperback has a Fleurs De Lys flag so that must be the anomaly.

I suppose it's possible that Hergé drew the Union Jack himself for the English edition (perhaps for the 1952 Casterman?), it's quite well done.

Finally, as Moderator, I should also reprimand myself for drifting off-topic...

In the brand new swedish translations the translator says in the foreword that Moulinsart i located about 30 minutes driving from Brussels, but I would definately say that Moulinsart is in France based on that it was a gift from the french king Louis XIV to Francois Haddoque who served in the french marine.

The english versions with king Charles II is just a change in translation and seems like a way to make the english kids feel more at home with the books.

The strange thing is that it seems like every other translation, except english, doesn't have a problem with the series being set in a different country. Surely the english kids would know that there existed other countries so I can't really understand why they changed the whole thing in the beginning. I know that Hergé and the translators had a close contact but in my opinion he should have said NO to the anglification of some things.

You all know that the books were made in Belgium by a belgian so what's the hard part about accepting that the series is not situated in England (except The Black Island of course)? The swedish translations never indicated that i was set in Sweden and I never had any problem as a kid understanding that i wasn't.

More on topic: I would say that Tintin moves from Labrador Road 26 to Moulinsart after Prisoners of the sun, though Land of black gold is squeezed in after it was as you know mostly done long before that, and that Tintin is already a permanent resident of Moulinsart in Destination moon.

I would say that the anomaly being in the placement of Land of black gold in cronological order, but since Hergé didn't change the whole story (and why should he) it doesn't really fit in where its placed. but on the other hand it doesn't fit completely somewhere else either.

The way Nestor adresses Tintin is not really an indication that he doesn't live at Moulinsart. Since the owner of the manor is without a doubt Archibald Haddock is natural to adress him as sir or master (or some such) but Tintin and Calculus are merely habitants and doesn't warrant the extra curtsies. And my educated guess is that it is Haddock who pays Nestor his salary and not Tintin or Calculus and being sort of old-fashioned Nestor sees that as good butler he should adress his employer as sir/master. He also adresses his former employers, the Bird brothers, in likewise manner. Only adressing Tintin as mister secretary (or something like it) not master.

Well that's my two cents of worth anyway.