Banned Books Week: Tintin in the Congo

Not only do I read banned books, but I buy them as well. Let me start with a story.

At the end of August, on my final evening of a lovely trip to Cape Cod, I was checking out Herridge Books in Wellfleet. Herridge Books is a used book store tucked in a corner not far from Mayo Beach and Wellfleet Center. I was looking for Church Mice books, while my daughter wanted ghost stories. You could have knocked me over with a clam roll when I found this:

As Captain Haddock would say--blistering barnacles!

A brief history of Tintin in the Congo: it is unavailable to purchase new in the United States. Period. Despite Tintin's decades of cult status in this country, and a highly successful animated film helped raise the franchise's profile, no one can walk into their local Barnes and Noble, or log on to Amazon.com to purchase a newly minted, 2005 (which is when it was last reprinted) edition of this book. Why not? Because the American publishers of the Tintin books, Little, Brown and Company, have deemed it too offensive for this country. Or, to quote the Forward at the start of the UK edition, (which indeed the copy I bought was) Tintin in the Congo contains "bourgeois, paternalistic stereotypes of the period." And Heaven knows we can't have any of that. Particularly in a children's book. And let's not even get started on Herge's attitude to big-game hunting.

I don't mean to sound glib. The controversy surrounding Tintin in the Congo is actually quite complex, based on the book's publishing history, Belgian colonial history, and Herge's own growth as a writer and the creator of Tintin the character. (The Guardian summarizes the issues nicely in this article about a recent attempt to ban the book in Belgium.) And, truthfully, the book is bourgeois and paternalistic. Embarrassingly so. I doubt that Herge meant to offend readers of the day, or even future readers of a more enlightened period, which I'm sure we all like to think the 21st Century is. But there are readers who will take offense to this book.

Now that I have finally read it, I can see that there's not much to recommend Tintin in the Congo other than Herge's name on the front cover. But as a fan of Tintin, I wanted to read it. As a librarian interested in issues of censorship and free speech, I wanted to read it. As a mother who discusses race relations with a daughter curious about the unequal world around her, I wanted to read it. There are many reasons why I wanted to read this book, and not a single one of them had to do with actually agreeing with its content. Yet look at the extent I had to go to find it--dumb luck at a used book store.

It's very easy to stand up and support books like To Kill a Mockingbird or The Color Purple, challenged and banned books whose literary merit and social importance is inherent. But there are ugly books which need protection, too. I recently read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (yet another frequently challenged book,) and I came across this exchange between Guy Montag and Faber:

"My wife says books aren't 'real'"
"Thank God for that. You can shut them, say 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it." (p. 80)

The Reader plays God to the book. Not the publisher. Not the neighbors. The Reader. Maybe it's because I believe in a God who supports free will as opposed to the manipulation of life to ensure harmony, that I found this quote so appropriate to the issue of intellectual freedom. There is a market in this country for Tintin in the Congo, and Little, Brown and Company should feel free to meet the demand of that market. They should not play God to readers by refusing to publish it. Publish the book, and let the readers play God.

For more information about Banned Books Week--it's the 30th anniversary by the way!--you can visit a couple of sites:
http://bannedbooksweek.org/
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek

And if you completely disagree with everything I say, feel free not to read Tintin in the Congo (assuming you can find a copy.)

Adventures of Tintin--almost here!

Okay, maybe 23 December 2011 isn't technically almost, but it's pretty darn close! However, it is still far enough away that repeated assertions about how Tintin is unknown in the United States will be numerous enough to make me throw myself over the side of the Unicorn! We can't keep Tintin on the shelves at this library, or any other where I have worked. The cub reporter and his little dog, Snowy, has a loyal fan base in this country, and I am fed-up of the media saying otherwise! And with current Doctor Who show runner, Stephen Moffat, one of the contributors to the screenplay, you can bet there will be interest in him alone. Anecdotal evidence suggests the allure of a big name has the power to bring new fans to an  established fandom.

Tintin in the Congo causing trouble again

The National Coalition Against Censorship blogs today about the decision by the Brooklyn Public Library to remove Tintin in the Congo from its circulating collection. They will still keep the book, but it will now be housed in a special collection. This is basically the age-old compromise for librarians when faced with material of a "difficult" (i.e. controversial) nature: make the book available, just make it difficult to find. Although most librarians probably consider themselves as protectors of intellectual freedom (I know I do) and like to think that they would fight to the death to allow readers access to a book--any book!--(fortunately I've not yet been asked to do so,) it is probably fair to say that most librarians also choose their battles. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Diary of Anne Frank, even the Harry Potter books, have cache, and it is easy to imagine most librarians standing up for these classics. But Tintin in the Congo has had a hard time finding defenders. I blogged about this issue in 2007 when Little Brown made the decision not to republish the book in the United States, despite the fact that the entire Tintin collection was at the time being reissued as a box set. And not having read the book myself (how can I? It is not easy to locate in this country,) I cannot comment on its historical or literary value. In the case of Tintin the Congo, I now have the feeling of collusion between publishers and libraries who have effectively between them made this book unavailable to anyone, buyers or borrowers. That is neither honest nor good.

Have YOU heard of Tintin

Here is a rather curious article from the BBC. It talks about how Tintin is nearly an unknown character in Britain, and even less well-known in the States. I find this to be an amazing assertion: as a child I clearly remember reading Tintin serialized in Children's Digest; I read his books as a child; his popularity continues today, with his books flying off the shelves at work (long before I created our graphic novel collection, I might add.) And any child of the 80's will remember The Thompson Twins. While Tintin is not as mainstream as, say, Spider Man or James Bond, he is by no means an unknown. Get it right, Auntie!

Blistering Barnacles! Tintin to hit the Screen

This is kind of an old story by now but the BBC reports about the upcoming Tintin films, one of which is to be directed by Peter Jackson (him of Lord of the Rings fame)and another by Steven Spielberg. According to the article a trilogy of films is to be made (Jackson clearly working on the premise that 3 is a magic number) and will feature the same technology that worked so well for Beowulf. So I guess that means it won't be live action? The article does not mention who will play the boy reporter, but there is already an official Tintin movie site, so you can watch that space for more news. Clearly, some people are very excited about this project. And who can blame them? I for one adore Tintin. When I visited Brussels, all I wanted to do was find a Tintin t-shirt. Forget the chocolate! But as I get older I find that I enjoy book to film adaptations less and less. But I'm looking forward to Snowy becoming the most famous film Yorkie since Toto.

Tintin on the hot seat

The news that Little Brown will not be publishing Tintin in the Congo is not really news. This story made the rounds of the blogosphere earlier in the year when the book was released in Europe. My gut instinct is to disagree with this decision, because to me it seems like historical revisionism. I can understand not marketing it as a children's book. I can even understand not including it in the box set. But to decide against publishing it altogether seems spineless and naive; spineless because the publisher's preferred to avoid a controversy, and naive because ignoring the book doesn't make what is objectionable less so. English children's novelist Anne Fine commented on the controversy in an article for The Times, citing incidents in her own writing where she has revised older texts for modern readers. If she chooses to do that to her own writing, that's her decision. And I guess choosing not to publish a book is a publisher's prerogative, but I would have had more respect for their decision to cancel publication if Little Brown said they wouldn't make any profit from the book. Everyone knows that money talks. And maybe that is what's motivating this decision, and they're not simply taking the high road.

I always come back to the opinion that if something is objectionable, don't buy it/read it/promote it. English journalist Kathryn Hughes agrees, although she is of the opinion that modern readers can learn from their unenlightened ancestors. Which takes us back to that historical revisionism thing. Tintin in the Congo is what it is: a book written when colonialism and colonialist attitudes were rampant. Eradicating racism from modern society is commendable, but eradicating all reference to it is not the way it's done.