jock123 Moderator
|
#28 · Posted: 10 Feb 2005 20:50
Well, I gave it a try, but I cannot see that you have made a case which convinces me in any way. There is nothing in what you have said which builds a proper argument for there being a hidden meaning to the books, and frankly what you have put forward is reliant upon such arbitrary interpretation and selction, that it seems to me you could apply it to absolutely anything.
I put it to you that the phrases from Hergé which you quote have a far more accurate, obvious interpretation:
• “Tintin, Haddock and all the others, it's meâ€: The characters are Hergé because a) he draws them, b), he writes what they say and do, and c) he expresses through them his interests and reactions etc. - Tintin is his enquiring mind, his bravery, and his love of adventure, Haddock is his anger and frustration etc. This is exactly the same as for someone like Schulz: Charlie Brown is his well-meaning side, Snoopy his imagination, Sally his mouthy side, Lucy his grumpiness. There’s nothing mystical about that, it’s just good sense - “Write about what you know†is what authors get told.
• Please remember Herge's words when he compared his message's writing to 'a cannon of 75 used to kill a fly', and that he viewed this writing as a 'childish' way to tell 'what he had to tell', and that he had managed to say 'what he had to say’: Here it seems to me that Hergé is actually pleading for people to regard his work with less intensity, not more - to enjoy it at its simplest, its most childish, and not to read more into it than is there. If he feels that putting his gags and adventures into the form of a strip-cartoon is already too much for them, which is what I take the reference to the cannon to kill a fly to mean, then your extra layer of textual analysis is waaaay too heavy.
I also put it to you that you don’t exactly seem to have made a convincing case to the posters on this or the French language BD site, and to thus write everyone off as lacking an open mind is perhaps to miss the point that perhaps there is nothing for us to see...
|