Customer Reviews

The Calculus Affair (The Adventures of Tintin)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"The Calculus Affair" may not be immediately entertaining, as in Explorers on the Moon or the Shooting Star, but it slowly develops the plot, with just enough suspense to put the reader at the edge of his seat at the last panel. And it starts with a boom, too. The mysterious phenomenon of breaking glass and china, including the Captain's whisky glass, is only fully explained on page 51, and the later pages expose many other plot details which contributed to the overall controlled confusion in the beginning and middle of the book. In some adventures, an answer is readily available to the various people and clues which meet up with Tintin and his friends, but in this book you feel just like a character, not knowing what will happen next. For Tintin and the Captain's dash through Switzerland, every little detail--the Hotel Cornavin, Professor Topolino's villa in Nyon, even the positioning of signposts and billboards--was mapped out by Hergé, with his usual extreme attention to detail. And for Tintin and Haddock's unexpected visit to Szohod, Hergé based most of the city on bits and pieces from the USSR--after all, it began in TINTIN magazine in 1954, the height of the Cold War. The Bordurians' habit of constantly reproducing their laughable leader Kurvi-Tasch's whiskers, even in their alphabet, was another Soviet touch, and their phrase "By the whiskers of Kurvi-Tasch" was probably taken from chants used at 1930s Stalinistic rallies. Overall, the book was an expert work, one of Hergé's finest, and certainly a complicated and precision instrument, even when compared to his much-hyped works preceding it, Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon.

As a kid, travelling with my parents in Europe, I was exposed to the brilliance of Tintin books. Across the board, they are entertaining, comical, suspenseful, and somewhat educational.

"The Calculus Affair" has long stood as one of my top five of the Tintin series. It features the absentminded professor, the blustery captain, the intrepid Tintin and his dog Snowy, and the British inspectors Thomson and Thompson. It's the quintessential Tintin story, full of miscues, clues, adventure, and comedy. I picked up a new copy the other day (now that I'm reaching forty years old), and sped through the story, reliving all the joy of my childhood. This is still fun stuff. Worth every penny.

May a whole new generation discover the genius of the Tintin books, as I did back in the seventies.

This adventure is well written and well illustrated, as all the Tintin books are, but is unique in how it is completly non-stop. Tintin and the Captain follow Calculus, the absent minded professor, as he travels, only to discover Calculus has been kiddnapped! An exciting story.

This book is one of the great masterpieces of the cartoonists art. I've read it many times since I was 14 (I'm now 29) but the sheer athleticism and virtuosity of both the draughtmanship and the narrative remained undiminished. It really is an astonishing display and is perhaps only second to 'Flight 714' and 'The Castafoire Emerald' in Herge's ouevre. Buy it and read it.

Strange things are happening at Captain Haddock's estate at Marlinspike.
Thugs are up to something, and all the glass is mysteriously exploding.
Soon Tintin and the Captain discover that Professor Calculus had been kidnapped.
Their investigation leads them to Switzerland and then to Borduria, ruled by the iron grip of the Stalinist Kurvi Tasch regime.
The Bordurians, it turns, out have kidnapped the Professor, to develop nuclear weapons and thus enable them to attain world domination.

This is quite eerily prophetic, being written in 1956, when it seemed quite impossible for a tinpot dictatorship to acquire such weapons of mass destruction, but we now we see these very same devices being developed by tyrannies such as Libya, Syria, Iran and North Korea.

The Calculus Affair is filled with espionage and gripping adventure.

Definately up there with the top Tintins. Expert amount of suspense and great characters. 9.5 out of 10.

After seventeen successful adventures, Tintin's reputation as an adventurer, world traveler and intrepid reporter is solid and his sterling character as a dependable, forthright, stalwart young man is well established. His friendships with an oft-times inebriated Captain Haddock and the intensely deaf but entirely endearing Professor Calculus are an integral part of each story in the ever lengthening Tintin canon. At this point, what is Hergé to do but pull a rabbit out of his hat and produce what is probably the most complex and exciting Tintin adventure to date.

THE CALCULUS AFFAIR is the exciting story of the good professor's development of a devastating ultrasonic weapon and the resulting struggle to kidnap Calculus and hijack the weapon by rival terrorist teams from Borduria and Syldavia. The fast-paced tale is interspersed with hilarious comedic moments centered on Wagg, a completely annoying and utterly obnoxious insurance salesman, with the thick skin of a rhinoceros able to withstand and shrug off the onslaught of Haddock's most colourful and vitriolic nautical invective.

A return cameo appearance by the eardrum busting opera soprano, Bianca Castafiore, kidnapping, gunplay, espionage, counter-espionage, high speed chases, fistcuffs and pratfalls all told and illustrated in Hergé's inimitable style, the usual outrageous wordplay that leaps off the springboard of Calculus's deafness, laugh out loud comedic interludes and much more make THE CALCULUS AFFAIR one of the most delightful stories in the entire Tintin repertoire.

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

The Calculus Affair comes in the wake of Hergé's greatest achievements in the Tintin series which peaked with the double-length works, The Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure, The Seven Crystal Balls/Prisoners of the Sun and Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon. The qualities that are evident in those books are all here in The Calculus Affair, the story packed with amusing incidents and adventure, strong characterisation, entertaining secondary characters and superlative clear-line artwork that is not only well designed and laid-out, but expressive and dynamic. There's only one area in which The Calculus Affair is lacking from the double-features, and it might well have something to do with length - there's just not much room left for a decent plot.

Essentially, although there is a little bit of a mystery at the start of the book with glass, crystal and ceramic objects shattering in Haddock's Marlinspike mansion, the plot involves an experiment that Calculus has been developing, creating a device that can destroy objects through the use of high-frequency sound. Two rival neighbouring Balkan nations, Syldavia and Borduria (fictional nations first encountered in King Ottakar's Sceptre), both recognise the potential for the invention to be used as a weapon with the power to destroy entire cities, and between them vie for kidnapping the Professor and obtaining his secrets.

If the plot has little that is inventive, complicated or nuanced in any way (when it comes to where Tintin's sympathies should lie during an encounter with agents from both countries, Captain Haddock amusingly recommends just hitting the ugliest ones) The Calculus Affair is at least a masterpiece in visual storytelling terms, every single page filled with seemingly insignificant little incidents that are meticulously storyboarded and realised. Some of the more memorable are the crossed telephone lines during the storm at the start that involves Mr Cutts the butcher and introduces insurance salesman Jolyon Wagg, there's the incident with the sticking plaster on the plane and there's the chase sequence with an eager Italian driver that culminates with a magnificent large frame of the car weaving through a small town on market day - but even seemingly minor throwaway jokes (Haddock's attitude towards hitchhikers) are brilliantly encapsulated in a couple of frames.

More than just amusement, these little situations (the crossed lines, the persistent sticking plaster of doubt that keeps on nagging at your conscience, the switching of ideals to suit self-interest) also reflect the conflict of ideals where morality isn't so clear - not least of which is in the use of science to develop weapons of mass destruction - so that it's consequently hard to determine which side to support. As far as comics go, this is highly sophisticated material under the guise of simple entertainment, Hergé dealing to some degree with the same concepts as Watchmen, questioning the use of nuclear weapons and the motivations of those with the power to use them for their own ends. Lacking a strong plot to hang these ideas upon, The Calculus Affair may not be as complex in narrative and structural terms as Alan Moore's 80's dark meditation on imminent nuclear Armageddon, but it's no less brilliant and innovative in terms of its visual language, still looking fresh and relevant while Watchmen is already looking dated, and it's certainly less self-important.

Belgian artist Herge borrowed liberally from the Cold War in "The Calculus Affair", first published in the mid-1950's. This adventure features his cartoon hero the young journalist Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy, his sea-faring friend Captain Haddock, the eccentric Professor Calculus, and many of the recurring characters of the series.

As the story opens, Captain Haddock's Marlinspike mansion experiences a strange phenomenon: glass, whether in the form of drinking glasses or mirrors or windows, keeps shattering for no apparent reason. The plot thickens when secret agents from the Balkan states of Syldavia and Borduria slink around the grounds. Suspecting danger, Tintin and Captain Haddock travel to Geneva to warn the visiting Professor Calculus.

In Geneva, Tintin and the Captain learn that Calculus may have invented a very dangerous hypersonic weapon. When the Professor is kidnapped by agents from Borduria. Tintin and the Captain follow. Once in Borduria, they will attempt a dramatic rescue of Calculus from a forbidding fortress, one that involves disguises, cars, and a tank.

"The Calculus Affair" may be one of the best of the Tintin adventures, with an exciting and intricate if slow-building plot leavened with lots of humor featuring Captain Haddock's misadventures. The simple but detailed artwork carries the story. "The Calculus Affair" is very highly recommended to Tintin fans of all ages.

The Calculus Affair is to me one of the best thriller stories there is. Regardless of genre. Recommendable for readers of all ages.