The Castafiore Emerald (French:
Les Bijoux de la Castafiore)
Original publication dates: July 1961 – September 1962
First collected edition: 1963
Author: Hergé
Tintin visits: Belgium (Marlinspike).
Overall rating:
Plot summary available here.
Publisher's synopsis:
When the old gypsy fortune-teller reads Captain Haddock's palm, she foresees trouble at Marlinspike Hall. Indeed, Tintin, Snowy and the Captain are scarcely home again before misfortune strikes. Comments:
The Castafiore Emerald is arguably the most experimental book in the whole of The Adventures of Tintin. Originally published between July 1961 and September 1962 in the pages of
Tintin magazine, this is a story in which Hergé played with the established conventions of the strip. Of course, he had already messed around with the traditional framework for a Tintin adventure in the previous book,
Tintin in Tibet, but here he goes even further, giving us a story in which there are no dangerous criminals for the central cast to confront, no action sequences, no adventure to speak of, and no suspense in the normal fashion. Tintin and his companions even fail to travel abroad, and instead stay at Captain Haddock's country estate, Marlinspike Hall. Indeed, this book could've very well been titled,
Tintin Stays at Home! Even the book's moody cover is experimental in nature, with Tintin uncharacteristically breaking the fourth wall, as he invites the reader to quietly watch the unfolding drama.
What Hergé presents the reader with here is a character-driven narrative, in which the opera singer Bianca Castafiore comes to stay at Marlinspike Hall and has her prize emerald stolen. Castafiore had long been a regular member of the extended supporting cast by this point, with the recurring joke being that she is a singer of international renown whose shrill, piercing voice causes Tintin, Haddock and Snowy considerable pain. The majority of her small, recurring appearances in The Adventures of Tintin had played upon this joke, but she had also, at times, been a tremendous ally to our heroes, helping them evade capture on occasion. Your personal tolerance of Castafiore as a character will, of course, have a bearing on how much you enjoy this book, since, as the title suggests, she dominates proceedings. Personally, I like her, but I can also see why some readers might find her annoying.
To me,
The Castafiore Emerald is reminiscent of a theatrical comedy of manners or a sophisticated farce, and the plot is littered with Agatha Christie-like clues, most of which turn out to be red herrings. In that respect, Hergé is playing that most dangerous of author's games: toying with his audience. The reader is encouraged to interpret the clues that he liberally sprinkles throughout the story and do a bit of armchair sleuthing – and there's certainly no shortage of characters suspected of stealing Castafiore's jewel, whether it be the singer's own staff, the paparazzi, a group of local gypsies, and even Haddock's mild-mannered butler, Nestor.
However, it is eventually revealed that none of these suspects are, in fact, the culprit, and the majority of the "clues" have absolutely nothing to do with the theft. For example, the mysterious footprints outside one of the windows of Marlinspike Hall come from Castafiore's pianist, sneaking off to go gambling in town; the huge-eyed "monster" in the attic is just an owl; and the shady characters who sneak into the grounds of Haddock's manor are no more than press photographers. To top it all off, Tintin eventually solves the mystery as a result of a sudden chance leap of logic; a plot twist that comes out of nowhere!
This lack of a logical detective narrative is, for me, the most irritating thing about
The Castafiore Emerald. The experimental nature of the book was also seemingly unpopular with a lot of fans at the time too because the book was much less commercially successful than any of the previous Tintin books had been. To this day,
The Castafiore Emerald remains a divisive book among fans of the boy reporter, with some applauding Hergé's desire to challenge the conventions of the strip and enjoying the character-oriented narrative, while others bemoan the lack of a proper mystery and exotic locale.
Regardless of your opinion of the story though, this book certainly sees Hergé's talents as an author and artist in fine form. His character study of Castafiore – or "Castoroili" as Haddock mockingly refers to her (Castor Oily, get it?) – paints her as every inch the pampered, demanding diva. She is as self-absorbed and contrary a character as one could imagine; on the one hand hiding from the press at Marlinspike Hall and on the other courting reporters from the "right" sort of publications. I think one of Hergé's greatest triumphs with this character is that the reader can actually "hear" the high-pitched, prissy, and haughty tone of her speaking voice, just from the way she's drawn...
I also love that Castafiore is still getting Haddock's name wrong, which is a joke stemming from the pair's first proper meeting in
The Calculus Affair. For his part, Haddock is extremely unhappy that his home has been invaded by the narcissistic opera singer and desperately wants to escape, but he can't, due to his being confined to a wheelchair after having sprained his ankle tripping over a broken step on Marlinspike's main staircase.
As usual though, despite her vanity and garrulousness, Castafiore comes across as an essentially kind-hearted soul who is tremendously fond of both the Captain and Tintin...
By the way, the mention of "The Jewel Song" and the country of Syldavia in the above panels is a reference to the boy reporter and the opera singer's first meeting in
King Ottokar's Sceptre. Tintin has had many adventures since he and Castafiore first met, and Hergé takes the opportunity to drop in plenty of references to some of those older stories and characters. Particularly notable among these references is the scene where Tintin gets a letter from his Chinese friend Chang, who appeared in both
The Blue Lotus and
Tintin in Tibet. This scene is rather bitter-sweet, and almost certainly a case of wish-fulfilment on the author's part, considering that Hergé still had no idea whether the real life Chang was alive or dead (as noted in my review of
Tintin in Tibet). I think it's fair to say that at the age of 55, Hergé was beginning to feel a touch nostalgic for his and Tintin's earlier life.
Hergé also lampoons the press, when a couple of reporters mistakenly believe that they've learned about Haddock and Castafiore's plan to get married. This sparks off a media frenzy, with details of the pair's upcoming wedding being splashed across magazines and newspapers all over Europe. The press are depicted as being so hungry for a story – any story! – that they are willing to believe almost anything, even when there is little or no proof of it being true. Although this incident is played for laughs, there's a veiled seriousness to this "fake news" which feels all too topical in our media-hungry, 21st century world.
The most charming characters in the book, outside of the central cast, are undoubtedly a group of gypsies that Tintin and Haddock encounter early on in the book...
Although the gypsies are the chief suspects in the case of Castafiore's stolen emerald, you can see from the above panels that Haddock and Tintin have no prejudice towards them at all – unlike several other characters in the story, who regard them as criminals, plain and simple. Hergé was definitely going against the grain of mainstream European opinion by depicting the gypsies as misunderstood innocents. Indeed, Haddock and Tintin's biggest concern is that the gypsies have been forced to live in a rubbish dump. As ever, the Captain's heart of gold shines through and he lets them move their camp to a meadow in the grounds of his stately home.
Note too, in the above panels, the accuracy of the Gypsy fortune-teller's prediction. Yet again we have Hergé introducing supernatural elements into the world of Tintin that are seemingly real, just as he had done in such recent books as
The Seven Crystal Balls,
Prisoners of the Sun, and
Tintin in Tibet. In the next book in the series,
Flight 714, Hergé will even introduce evidence of extra-terrestrial beings! This increasing use of supernatural elements in The Adventures of Tintin is, I suspect, a reflection of Hergé's own growing belief and interest in such phenomena during the latter part of his life.
Just to stay with the gypsies for a moment, I want to comment on the wonderfully ornate Romany wagons and gypsy clothing that Hergé gives these colourful travellers. As ever, the detail he puts into his drawings of the Romani and their wagons is meticulous and utterly authentic. There's also a wonderfully drawn panel of the gypsies singing songs by firelight on page 40, which is just gorgeous...
I also want to note that Hergé seems to be overly preoccupied with the animals inside and outside Marlinspike Hall. This is, of course, partly all foreshadowing for the big reveal at the book's conclusion, in which we learn that it's actually a thieving magpie who is to blame for the disappearance of Castafiore's emerald, rather than a human criminal.
However, there's more to it than that, I think. The animals are often shown in the foreground of panels, and creatures like the talking parrot that Castafiore gifts to Haddock, the owl in the attic, and the magpie all have roles that are central to the narrative. The book even ends with a scene that is reminiscent of a children's picture book, with the owl and magpie framing the last panel, as the escaped parrot breaks the fourth wall to squawk, "
Blistering barnacles, that's the end!"...
My use of the word "picture book" is deliberate because I think Hergé is using animals and the mystical, free-spirited gypsies (who he views as other-worldly and closer to nature than their city and town-dwelling countrymen) to subliminally evoke a child-like, enchanted vision of the natural world. The narrative initially appears to be about a lurking criminal, but in reality, it is simply wild, natural elements doing what comes naturally to them: owls hoot, parrots "talk", gypsies travel, and magpies steal shiny objects.
Interestingly, although Snowy is an animal, he is not counted as being among these "natural elements" by Hergé. I guess that since he is domesticated and can talk (as far as the reader is concerned), he's really more like a human being. In that context, there's a cracking piece of self-referencing humour and meta-commentary on page 9, in the scene where Snowy, who is clearly annoyed by the presence of the talking parrot, indignantly announces that he can't stand animals who talk!
I think it's significant that almost all of the human characters in the book are involved in misunderstandings or misfortunes – victims of that most infuriating of natural laws: Murphy's Law, in which anything that can go wrong will. The exception to this are the gypsies, who, as I say, Hergé seems to regard as being part of the natural world. Even the usually capable and dynamic Tintin is quite ineffective in this story: no longer is he the super-sleuth of past adventures – here he pursues false clues and incorrect leads at every turn, eventually solving the mystery seemingly by luck.
I wonder if, apart from foreshadowing, the book's emphasis on animals is a subliminal clue to the mystery's solution. The magpie actually appears in the very first panel of the story. Surely this is Hergé taunting us with a major clue right at he start of the story. Did Tintin subconsciously notice the presence of the bird too, an image that only came back to him when he heard "La gazza ladra" later on in the book?
I think
The Castafiore Emerald is a story that is symbolically couched in the notion that our loss of harmony with the natural world causes us obstructions and hindrances in achieving our goals and living our lives. This is an idea that is closely related to Taoism and Oriental philosophy, both of which I know Hergé was well read on. I believe that the wild animal life in the story subconsciously suggests the solution to the mystery to Tintin (and the reader), but he only manages to succeed in solving the "crime" when he reconnects with the animal part of his brain – his subconscious – and harmonises with the Tao.
As usual with a Tintin adventure, there's plenty of humour in the book, but it's perhaps a little more subtle than usual. That said, there is a highly amusing recurring slapstick gag involving a broken staircase step, which just about every character in Marlinspike Hall falls down, except for Castafiore. In addition, the "Mr. Cutts, the Butcher" gag, which was introduced in
The Calculus Affair, is still going strong, and the Thom(p)sons are their usual amusingly bungling selves. The irritating insurance salesman Jolyon Wagg returns too, but happily he's slightly less annoying than usual.
Professor Calculus is also the source of some humour, with his "Super-Calcacolor" invention. This is a high-tech viewing device which can be placed in front of a black & white TV screen to transform the picture into colour. Calculus seems undeterred by the fact that colour TV had already been invented by the time this book was published, as Haddock attempts in vain to inform him. There's also a reference to a TV program called "Scanorama" in this scene, which is clearly meant to be the BBC's flagship current affairs program Panorama.
To be honest, the Super-Calcacolor sequence feels like filler and just an excuse for Hergé to show off how well he can drawn a badly tuned-in TV set. That said, the sequence certainly does demonstrate the inventiveness of Hergé's artistic skills, even if it is a distraction from the ongoing plot. The visual "punchline", in which everybody's vision is left temporarily distorted, is superbly rendered...
While I'm on the subject of Professor Calculus, I just want to comment on his relationship with Castafiore. This is the first time that the two characters have met, and it's interesting that Castafiore greets Calculus as being a famous balloonist, proving that there's more to the professor's escapades than we've seen in the pages of Tintin...
The professor is quite clearly smitten with Castafiore and later on in the book we find him breeding a new type of rose, which he names after the opera singer. Calculus's infatuation with Castafiore is about the only example I can think of where we see genuine romance in the Tintin books. Neither Haddock or Tintin have ever had a love interest or any apparent inclination towards having one, and the boy reporter in particular is essentially an entirely asexual creation. Therefore, Calculus is the only principal character who appears to be in any way attracted to the opposite sex, eventually making his excuses and perusing Castafiore to Milan at the end of the book.
To sum up, I'm torn when it comes to
The Castafiore Emerald. In some ways, I like it very much. It is, as I said at the start of my review, definitely an experimental book, which is fascinating to see, when viewed in the context of the whole series. It's also fairly entertaining as a comedy of manners, and the character focused nature of the story will definitely be appreciated by long-time readers of the series. But it's not the most gripping Tintin book, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a Tintin neophyte.
For me, the single biggest problem is that it's hard for Hergé to inject any real excitement into a story in which, essentially, very little happens. As if that wasn't problematic enough, finding out that the villain of the piece is nothing more than a thieving magpie feels decidedly anticlimactic. I can definitely appreciate Hergé pushing the envelope in terms of what the Tintin strip can do, but the book suffers in some ways as a result. Ultimately,
The Castafiore Emerald feels like a rather pointless adventure overall and, despite its pretty artwork, brilliantly observed character studies, and inventive structure, there's something strangely unfulfilling about it.