All the above is most interesting, and I'll now try and explain how Haddock's arrival in Wadesdah might also be a 'rhetorical device' designed to suggest 'distortion', as its sets off some of the widest
spatiotemporal faults in the corpus...
As you know, Haddock's
unseen passage starts and ends with explicit
spatiotemporal data:
- an
immediate mobilization (p.3, A4)...
- a
prolonged absence...
- a
sudden presence in Wadesdah (p.54, B2)...
Imho, if this 'unseen passage' is so much noticed and discussed about, it's mainly because it's the most ...'clearly delineated'...
As already said on another thread,
space could stand for an unseen passage's
substitutions, very much
space-occupying sometimes, as shown by Tintin while he was in ...India
(The Blue Lotus, p.1, C2 of the B&W edition), namely
http://www.editorialjuventud.es/img/tintin/84-261-2762-2img2.jpg
Time could stand for an unseen passage's
-
transpositions, quite
time consuming sometimes, as shown by Tintin's trouble to decipher the strange Morse message during his India-Shanghai
own unseen passage (see
Lotus p.19, C2) - because the data have to be put back in their
timely original order...
-
time could stand also for
discontinuous transmissions containing
nulls, namely data that have to be ignored when read, or trivial data that have to be 'cross-matched' with other trivial data...
Haddock's
speech interruptions every time he tries to tell Tintin about his presence in Wadesdah
(Land of Black Gold, p.54 C2-4, p.55 B2+C1, p.56 C4 & p.62 C4) could stand for that, imho...
As said in the beginning, all the above goes with various 'spatiotemporal faults', that are magnified a lot:
1 unreal duplications (such as those found in America, Cigars, Rackham, Crystal, Prisoners, Tibet, Emerald...) occur soon after Abdallah's kidnapping, reportedly committed by 'Bab El Ehr' (p.37, A3):
- the Emir sends 300 horsemen (p.38, C2) on the bandits' tracks, which will anyway lead to his son, wherever is his place of confinement and whoever are the villains (i.e. lead to Wadesdah)...
- Tintin describes this warriors' troop as 'useless' (p.39, A3) and is thus very clairvoyant indeed, as the 300 seem to vanish
* in the desert during their 20 kilometers' ride from the palace to Wadesdah (p.40, B1)...
- the warriors' 'disappearance' is implicitely asserted by Tintin asking the Emir 'to send men to Wadesdah' (p.48, B3)...
- the warriors'
duplication is confirmed by the Emir (p.54, D3) soon after Haddock's arrival, and later seen (p.55, B3)...
2 unreal speeds (such as those of the 'Puss Moth', 'Pachacamac', 'DC-3', 'Carreidas 160'...):
- though the sand trail & the Emir's car are very fast (p.56, D2) and the distance from the palace to Wadesdah is 20 km only, Haddock needs over two hours' drive to cover the longest part (p.60, C1) of these 20 km, at the
unreal speed of about 5mph, with a car that didn't need any repair even after it was damaged by Tintin's bullets (p.58, A5)...
I doubt Haddock needs much time to change a wheel for a flat tyre (p.58, A5), but who knows?
- Tintin does even worse with the jeep -in good state of repair, as he needs a two hours' drive to drop Muller at the police station + rush with the Thompsons to the hospital, via the smallest part of the 20 km's or 12 miles' distance, at the
unreal speed of about 1mph...
How come? Wherever is their common starting point in the desert, both cars need 2 hours to cover the 12 miles, hence the sum of their respective speeds must be about 6mph...
Why would the author so systematically and carefully inscribe accurate 'time and space' data that can't fit together?
3 other
unreal speeds include the Thompsons'
too fast hair growth (p.60, D3) & their
too slow recovery (p.62, B2), whereas Calculus' estimated their hair symptoms would cease
rapidly (p.62, A5)...
Haddock's prolonged absence & the magnified
spatiotemporal faults in the
Black Gold could be meant to counterbalance the 'lacking'
Indians + unseen transmission system, both usually clearly delineated in the albums
** with
obscure passages & spatiotemporal faults...
Such 'lacks' might however just be latent:
- about unseen Indians: Smith (p.40, A4) & Tintin (p.41, C1!) are 'archeologists' interested in the ancient Middle East civilisations, among them age-old Empires such as Alexander the Great's (B.C.) & the Sassanids' (A.D.), that included part of ...India, namely [/i]Indians[/i], a passion of Professor Paul Cantonneau...
- about unseen transmission system: an 'unseen passage' (or message) could be as latent as the
Indians in this album; it should be linked with Cantonneau's other passion, namely
stars (see related threads) and might be infered by
cross-matching various 'trivial'
internal data met in the corpus...
* in the
Soviets (p.3, C1), 'only' 218 passengers vanish...
** such as
Cigars, Lotus, Brocken Ear, Unicorn, Flight 714, Emerald, Picaros, etc. (see other threads)...