Review: Tintin and the Secret of Literature

Tom McCarthy’s 2006 book, Tintin and the Secret of Literature is reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.

In France in particular, Tintin became a cottage industry, his exploits fodder for philosophers, psychoanalysts and literary critics, all of whom McCarthy leans on in asking, “Is ‘Tintin’ literature?” He notes the “huge irony . . . that the ‘Tintin’ books remain both unrivaled in their complexity and depth and so simple, even after more than half a century, that a child can read them with the same involvement as an adult.” But the question of whether they’re literature is not as interesting now, given the ascendance of pop culture. McCarthy seems to admit as much when he tweaks his query slightly: “As soon as we ask if ‘Tintin’ should be treated as literature, we raise another question: what is literature?”

From: ‘Tintin and the Secret of Literature’ by Tom McCarthy