Tintin Forums

Hello Rasta!
which pages do you mean?

In the book there is a section at the very back with lots of writing and panels from the books. It looks like a breakdown of the panels, and I would like to know what the author is commenting on.

Basically the last few pages! thanks!

Hello Rasta,
please give me the exact page numbers before I get starting to translate (I think page 61, but please confirm.).

Hi Trifonious! I am most interested in the translation of pages 50 and 51. Page 50 I presume is about Dreams as the Title is "De Dromen" . It would be great if you could translate this. Thanks again!

Any other translations that are of interest from that section of the book (pages 41 to 52) would be very kind. Thanks again!

Hello Rasta!
I will start translating ...
I will do one panel each time.
Where could it be sent to best? This forum?

Hi Rasta,
this is the panel of page 50, about dreams:
"(p. 50)

The dreams.
Hergé was a master of the language and the strict logics of dreams, and the apparant absurdity of what happens in dreams.
Furthermore, he was able to create a perfect balance between dream and reality that initiated the dream.
In bad dreams Tintin saw himself mummified by Egyptians and kidnapped by Snowy-as- cannibal; he saw Calculus on the board of a river discovering (doodsbloemen=flowers of death?), unaware of the lance threatening him; he has been threatened by a thirsty Haddock, who wants to split his head by a corkscrew … And Haddock saw himself as a child thrashed by the umbrella of Calculus, or he saw himself naked in a hall full of parrots (after a whole day listening to Castafiore and her parrot chattering), forced to listen to another recital of a cross-breeding between Castafiore and a parrot … Sometimes Hergé drawed a dream without distinguishing it from reality: de appearance of the prophet of revenge (Shouting Star) and of the violated and revengeful mummy (Seven Crystal Balls). For regarding mysterious and ominous objects, Hergé’s world between sleeping and awakeness is not different from what happens in his bad dreams."
I hope it will be a bit accurate.

Thanks Trifionius! Great translation, very interesting (for all of us). The dream sequences from the Tintin adventures have always fascinated me as they are very surreal. For an illustration project at art college I produced a parody Tintin cover, and I tried to recreate a Tintin dream scene.
I think "doodsbloemen" is translated as "flowers of death", it's in the dream scene in Prisoners of the Sun, where Calculus has his pendulum swinging over a plant which is sprouting skulls!

'Hi Rasta!
Here are the panels of page 51:

(p. 51 - 1)

A blinding clearness.
In ’The shouting Star’) Tintin does know the end of the world is nearby. After having showed pity with the people who doesn’t know yet, he returns to the blinding clearness of his own home. Hergé’s style (of drawing; Triphonius) is called ‘de Klare Lijn’ (the clear line) because of the clearness of his drawings. But behind this clearness there is often hidden a superstitious, dark poetry.


(p. 51-2)

Confusion of times.
In ‘The secret of the Unicorn’ Hergé -and Haddock- tell both by words and by liquor of the heroic acts on sea by the knight Hadoque. In 13 pages the present and the past are being confused: the flag to which Haddock is pointing, was waving in the 17th century.


(p. 51 – 3)

Perversion (or is it distortion? Triphonius)
Besides the visual perversions caused by the use of alcohol and by a TV-meeting with Calculus, we should mention the verbal distortions caused by Calculus’ deafness. This perversion by lack of information, by manipulation of information, or by too much information, is a theme that Hergé deeply handled in the comedy of misunderstanding, ‘The Castafiore Emerald’, and that he generated in the grotesque Carnival procession in ‘The Picaros.

Thanks Trifonius,
It’s great having this information at last. Its just as interesting as I thought it would be. For the blinding clearness (p. 51-1) It refers to the Tintins realisation that the world is about to end, and he becomes delirious. This is the kind of magic Herge was able to create in his work. Its fascinating that Herge used such dark undercurrents in the Tintin adventures, and I feel there were certain parts of his psyche, sub-conscience were reflecting in his work (The doom of war loomed at the time of The Shooting Star), as with many other artists. This impending doom scenario is a great feat of 'closure' which Herge used to captivate the reader, using Tintin as a vehicle for the readers fears, and fright of what the future holds.