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| "No matter how much you want to disagree with McCarthy. . .his chatty style is so forcefully confident and his argument so tightly constructed and so well-supported, that by the end you're throwing your arms up in surrender. . . . It's brilliant." —The Daily Telegraph |
| "So detailed are McCarthy's references that I found myself reading this slim volume a handful of pages at a time. . . . He sends you back to the books with renewed enjoyment and refreshed eye." —Time Out |
| "McCarthy dives straight into the depths of Remi's work, pulling together biographical, political, formal and psychoanalytical approaches to reveal fascinating subtexts and unfamiliar themes. . . . McCarthy picks up such potentially dry notions with uncommon flair and humour, weaving them through the books with highly un-academic glee. . . . McCarthy's book is so successful because he wastes no time fretting over his own journey in connecting the conceptual brilliance of a cartoon strip to the key ideas of 20th century art. . . . All the best literature deserves such imaginative investigation. McCarthy's ingenious attempt to decode Herge's work unlocks old doors to understandings and presents new pathways for further exploration. That, in essence, is what literature has to offer. No answers, but endless possibilities." —Sunday Herald (Glasgow) |
| "Tintin fans will either be thrilled that someone is taking Herge's oeuvre seriously at last, or feel appalled at such an unapologetically high-brow approach--however playful. Still, you can't deny either McCarthy's verve or gumption." —Daily Mail |
| "[P]layful, insightful. . . . It's a cause for celebration when a book like this comes along. . . written with such freedom and verve that it's hard not to start looking at all books in the same way." —The Independent on Sunday | |
Tintin and the Secret of Literature
Tom McCarthy
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| Cloth | 5.5 x 8.25 | 224 pgs. | ISBN: 1-58243-405-0 | List: $15.95 | 04/1/2008 |
Available on Powells.com, Amazon.com, from your local BookSense store, and bookstores everywhere!
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About the book: Is Tintin literature? asks Tom McCarthy in this slyly brilliant study of one of the greatest comics of the 20th century. He promptly embarks on an adventure in deconstruction and discovery--bringing on board the readers themselves as well as such writers and philosophes as Balzac, Barthes, Bataille, and Derrida--aimed at determining Tintin's cultural status.
Playful, provocative, puckish, at times even a little racy, McCarthy's irresistibly clever, tightly constructed book shows how the themes Tintin generates are in fact the very same that have fueled and troubled writers from the classical era to the present day.
Invigorating both subject and method with a brio so relentless it is almost disturbing, unpacking Tintin while offering a delightfully readable tour de force of literary theory, McCarthy's nonfiction debut makes as much of a mark as his breakout fiction debut, Remainder.
About the author: Tom McCarthy is an artist and writer, and has written several books, articles and essays, including Remainder (Vintage, 2007) and Men in Space.
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