The Crab with the Golden Claws
The Crab with the Golden Claws (Le Crabe aux pinces d'or) | |
---|---|
Date |
|
Series | The Adventures of Tintin |
Publisher | Casterman |
Creative team | |
Creator | Hergé |
Original publication | |
Published in | Le Soir Jeunesse (supplement to Le Soir), then Le Soir |
Date of publication | 17 October 1940 – 18 October 1941 |
Language | French |
Translation | |
Publisher | Methuen |
Date | 1958 |
Translator |
|
Chronology | |
Preceded by | King Ottokar's Sceptre (1939) Land of Black Gold (1939) (abandoned) |
Followed by | The Shooting Star (1942) |
The Crab with the Golden Claws (French: Le Crabe aux pinces d'or) is the ninth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised weekly in Le Soir Jeunesse, the children's supplement to Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from October 1940 to October 1941 amidst the German occupation of Belgium during World War II. Partway through serialisation, Le Soir Jeunesse was cancelled and the story began to be serialised daily in the pages of Le Soir. The story tells of young Belgian reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy, who travel to Morocco to pursue a gang of international opium smugglers. The story marks the first appearance of main character Captain Haddock.
The Crab with the Golden Claws was published in book form shortly after its conclusion. Hergé continued The Adventures of Tintin with
Synopsis
Tintin is informed by
Stranded at sea, a seaplane tries to attack them; Tintin and the Captain hijack the plane, tie up the pilots, and try to reach Spain. Haddock's drunken behaviour in a storm causes them to crash-land in the
While Thomson and Thompson discreetly investigate Ben Salaad, Tintin tracks down Allan and the rest of the gang and saves Captain Haddock, but they both become intoxicated by the fumes from wine barrels breached in a shootout with the villains. Haddock chases a gang-member from the cellar to an entrance behind a bookcase in Salaad's house. Upon sobering up, Tintin discovers a necklace of a crab with golden claws on the now-subdued owner of the wine cellar, Omar ben Salaad, and realizes that he is the leader of the
History
Background
"It is certain that
Raymond de Becker [editor of Le Soir] sympathized with the National Socialist system ... I admit that I believed myself that the future of the West could depend on the New Order. For many people democracy had proven deceptive, and the New Order brought fresh hope. In Catholic circles such views were widely held. Given everything that happened, it was naturally a terrible error to have believed even for an instant in the New Order".
Hergé, 1973[3]
As the
Instead, he accepted a position with Le Soir, Belgium's largest Francophone daily newspaper. Confiscated from its original owners, the German authorities permitted Le Soir to reopen under the directorship of Belgian editor Raymond De Becker, although it remained firmly under Nazi control, supporting the German war effort and espousing anti-Semitism.[9][b] After joining Le Soir on 15 October, Hergé created its new children's supplement, Le Soir Jeunesse. Appointed editor of this supplement, he was aided by old friend Paul Jamin and the cartoonist Jacques Van Melkebeke.[11] The first issue of Le Soir Jeunesse was published with a large announcement across the cover: "Tintin et Milou sont revenus!" ("Tintin and Snowy are Back!").[12] Some Belgians were upset that Hergé was willing to work for a newspaper controlled by the occupying Nazi administration; he received an anonymous letter from "the father of a large family" asking him not to work for Le Soir, fearing that The Adventures of Tintin would now be used to indoctrinate children in Nazi ideology, and that as a result "they will no longer speak of God, of the Christian family, of the Catholic ideal ... [How] can you agree to collaborate in this terrible act, a real sin against Spirit?"[13] Hergé however was heavily enticed by the size of Le Soir's readership, which reached 600,000, far more than what Le Vingtième Siècle had been able to accomplish.[14] Faced with the reality of Nazi oversight, Hergé abandoned the overt political themes that had pervaded much of his earlier work, instead adopting a policy of neutrality.[15] Without the need to satirise political types, Harry Thompson observed that "Hergé was now concentrating more on plot and on developing a new style of character comedy. The public reacted positively".[16]
Publication
The Crab with the Golden Claws began serialisation in Le Soir Jeunesse on 17 October 1940.[17] However, on 8 May 1941, a paper shortage caused by the ongoing war led to Le Soir Jeunesse being reduced to four pages, with the length of the weekly Tintin strip being cut by two-thirds. Several weeks later, on 3 September, the supplement disappeared altogether, with The Crab with the Golden Claws being moved into Le Soir itself in September, where it became a daily strip. As a result, Hergé was forced to alter the pace at which his narrative moved, as he had to hold the reader's attention at the end of every line.[18] As with earlier Adventures of Tintin, the story was later serialised in France in the Catholic newspaper Cœurs Vaillants from 21 June 1942.[17]
Following serialisation, Casterman collected together and published the story in book form in 1941; the last black-and-white Tintin volume to be released. For this collected edition, Hergé thought of renaming the story, initially considering The Red Crab (to accompany earlier adventures The Blue Lotus and The Black Island) before re-settling on Le Crabe aux pinces d'or (The Crab with the Golden Claws).[19] Hergé became annoyed that Casterman then sent the book to the printers without his final approval.[20] Nevertheless, as a result of Le Soir's publicity, book sales markedly increased, to the extent that most of the prior Adventures of Tintin were reprinted as a result.[21] German authorities made two exceptions: Tintin in America and The Black Island could not be reprinted at the time because they were set in the United States and Britain respectively, both of which were in conflict with Germany.[22]
The serial introduced the character of Captain Haddock. Haddock made his first appearance in Le Soir adjacent to an advert for the anti-Semitic German film,
Whereas Hergé's use of Chinese in The Blue Lotus was correct, the Arabic script employed in The Crab with the Golden Claws was intentionally fictitious.[27] Many of the place names featured in the series are puns: the town of Kefheir was a pun on the French Que faire? ("what to do?") while the port of Bagghar derives from the French bagarre (scrape, or fight).[27] The name of Omar ben Salaad is a pun meaning "Lobster Salad" in French.[28]
In February 1942, Casterman suggested to Hergé that his books be published in a new format; 62-pages rather than the former 100 to 130 pages, and now in full colour rather than black-and-white.[29] He agreed to this, and in 1943 The Crab with the Golden Claws was re-edited and coloured for publication as an album in 1944.[30] Due to the changes in how the adventure had been serialised at Le Soir, the album at this juncture was only 58 pages long, and thus Hergé filled the missing pages with four full-page colour frames, thus bringing it up to the standard 62-page format.[31] The Crab with the Golden Claws contained one of Hergé's two favourite illustrations from The Adventures of Tintin. It depicts Berbers reacting to Haddock's manic ravings, eventually becoming terrified of him and running away.[c] Hergé described the action as "a series of movements, broken up and distributed among several characters. It could have been the same individual, lying down first, then getting up slowly, hesitating and finally running away. It's like a short cut in space and time".[33]
In the 1960s, The Crab with the Golden Claws, along with
Critical analysis
Hergé biographer Benoît Peeters described the story as a "rebirth" for The Adventures of Tintin and described the addition of Haddock as "a formidable narrative element", one which "profoundly changed the spirit of the series".[37] Elsewhere, he asserts that it is Haddock's appearance which "makes this book so memorable" and that he is tempted to define the book by that character's début.[38] Fellow biographer Pierre Assouline commented that The Crab with the Golden Claws had "a certain charm" stemming from its use of "exoticism and colonial nostalgia, for the French especially, evoking their holdings in North Africa".[39] Michael Farr asserted that the arrival of Haddock was the most "remarkable" element of the story, offering the series "tremendous new potential".[40] He also thought that the dream sequences reflected the popularity of surrealism at the time, and that the influence of cinema, in particular the films of Alfred Hitchcock, is apparent in the story.[41]
Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier described the story as "a thinly-disguised remake of Cigars of the Pharaoh", an Adventure of Tintin which had been first serialised in 1934. Both feature the smuggling of opium, in crab tins and cigars respectively, and "desert treks, hostile tribes and, at the end, the infiltrating of a secret underground lair".[26] They also opined that artistically, the story represented "a turning point in Hergé's career", because he had to switch to a daily format in Le Soir, although as a result of this they felt that the final third of the story "seems rushed".[26] Stating that the inclusion of a Japanese detective investigating drug smuggling in the Mediterranean makes no sense within the context of 1940s Europe, they ultimately awarded the story three out of five stars.[42]
"As a fun exercise, try to do a 'vulgar' scan of the whole oeuvre. You will pick up on the scenes in The Crab with the Golden Claws where Haddock, delirious with dehydration, pictures Tintin as a bottle of champagne ready to gush and Tintin, himself dreaming that he has been trapped inside a bottle, screams as the Captain, wielding a giant corkscrew, penetrates and screws him".
Tom McCarthy, 2006[43]
Literary critic Jean-Marie Apostolidès of Stanford University, in a psychoanalytical review of The Crab with the Golden Claws, commented that this book witnessed Tintin's "real entrance into the community of human beings" as he gains an "older brother" in Haddock.[44] He also believed that the recurring image of alcohol throughout the story was symbolic of sexuality. In particular, he believed that there was a strong homoerotic subtext between Haddock and Tintin, represented in the two delirious sequences; in one, Haddock envisions Tintin as a champagne bottle frothing at the top (thereby symbolising an ejaculating penis), while in the other, Tintin dreams that he is trapped inside a bottle, with Haddock about to stick a corkscrew into him (thereby symbolising sexual penetration). However, Apostolidès notes, in both instances the pair are prevented from realising their sexual fantasies.[45] Literary critic Tom McCarthy concurred with Apostolidès on this point, also highlighting what he perceived as homoerotic undertones to these two scenes.[43] He also noted that in this Adventure, the manner in which a chance finding of a tin can on a Belgian street leads Tintin into the story is representative of the recurring theme of "Tintin the detective" found throughout the series.[46]
Adaptations
In 1947, the first Tintin motion picture was created: the
In 1957, the animation company
In 1991, a second animated series based upon The Adventures of Tintin was produced, this time as a collaboration between the French studio
A 2011
In popular culture
In The Simpsons episode "In the Name of the Grandfather" Bart Simpson makes a derogatory remark about Belgium, causing his mother Marge to threaten him with "taking his Tintins away", whereupon Bart clutches a copy of the Tintin album The Crab with the Golden Claws to his chest, promising he'll behave.[54][55][56][57]
References
Notes
- ^ Land of Black Gold would be successfully re-attempted ten years later, in 1950.
- ^ Le Soir as published during the occupation was known by Belgians as Le Soir volé (The Stolen Soir) as it was published without the approval of its original owners, Rossel & Cie, who regained ownership after the Liberation.[10]
- ^ The illustration is in the second upper left frame on page 38.[32]
Footnotes
- ^ Hergé 1958, pp. 1–28.
- ^ Hergé 1958, pp. 29–62.
- ^ Peeters 2012, pp. 117–118.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 66; Goddin 2009, p. 69; Peeters 2012, pp. 111–112.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 67; Goddin 2009, p. 70; Peeters 2012, pp. 112–113.
- ^ Peeters 2012, pp. 113–114.
- ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 68–69; Goddin 2009, p. 70; Peeters 2012, p. 114.
- ^ Peeters 2012, pp. 114–115.
- ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 70–71; Peeters 2012, pp. 116–118.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 70; Couvreur 2012.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 72; Peeters 2012, pp. 120–121.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 92; Assouline 2009, p. 72; Peeters 2012, p. 121.
- ^ Goddin 2009, p. 73; Assouline 2009, p. 72.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 73; Peeters 2012.
- ^ a b Thompson 1991, p. 99; Farr 2001, p. 95.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 99.
- ^ a b c d Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 45.
- ^ Peeters 1989, p. 66; Thompson 1991, p. 102; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 45; Assouline 2009, p. 78; Peeters 2012, p. 125.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 95; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 45; Assouline 2009, p. 79.
- ^ Peeters 2012, p. 126.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 79; Peeters 2012, p. 126.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 98.
- ^ Peeters 2012, p. 124.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 100; Assouline 2009, p. 74.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 100.
- ^ a b c Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 47.
- ^ a b Farr 2001, p. 95.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 46.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 95; Goddin 2009, p. 83.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 95; Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 45.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 102; Farr 2001, p. 95.
- ^ Hergé 1958, p. 38.
- ^ Sadoul 2004, p. 156.
- ^ a b Owens 2004.
- ^ a b Thompson 1991, p. 103; Farr 2001, p. 96.
- ^ Thompson 1991, p. 103; Farr 2001, p. 96; Owens 2004.
- ^ Peeters 2012, pp. 124–126.
- ^ Peeters 1989, p. 66.
- ^ Assouline 2009, p. 73.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 92.
- ^ Farr 2001, p. 96.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, pp. 47–48.
- ^ a b McCarthy 2006, p. 109.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 115.
- ^ Apostolidès 2010, p. 118.
- ^ McCarthy 2006, p. 18.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 87; Peeters 2012, p. 187.
- ^ Peeters 2012, p. 188.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, pp. 87–88.
- ^ Lofficier & Lofficier 2002, p. 90.
- ^ a b The Daily Telegraph: Michael Farr 2011.
- ^ Lyttelton, Oliver (16 October 2011). "Steven Spielberg Says 'The Adventures of Tintin' is "85% Animation, 15% Live Action"". IndieWire. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
- ^ IGN 2011.
- ^ "Bart Simpson is verzot op Kuifje". De Standaard. 26 March 2009.
- ^ "Bart Simpson is België-hater | Radio1". Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
- ^ "Tintin chez les Simpson". 7sur7.be (in French). Archived from the original on 25 September 2017.
- ^ "Bart Simpson haat België, maar is verzot op Kuifje". Het Nieuwsblad. 25 March 2009.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-8047-6031-7.
- ISBN 978-0-19-539759-8.
- Couvreur, Daniel (22 June 2012). "Le strip perdu du "Soir volé"" [Lost Strip of "The Stolen Soir"]. Le Soir (in French). Belgium. Archived from the original on 7 October 2015. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-7195-5522-0.
- Farr, Michael (17 October 2011). "The inspiration behind Steven Spielberg's Tintin". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 19 October 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
- ISBN 978-0-86719-724-2.
- ISBN 978-0-316-35833-0.
- ISBN 978-1-904048-17-6.
- ISBN 978-2203017177.
- ISBN 978-1-86207-831-4.
- Owens, Chris (1 October 2004). "Tintin crosses the Atlantic: The Golden Press affair". Tintinologist.org. Archived from the original on 9 April 2014. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-416-14882-4.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0454-7.
- ISBN 978-0-340-52393-3.
- "The Adventures of Tintin [The Game] Review". IGN. 8 December 2011. Archived from the original on 24 September 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
External links
- The Crab with the Golden Claws at the official Tintin website
- The Crab with the Golden Claws at Tintinologist.org