The Calculus Affair
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| The Calculus Affair (L'Affaire Tournesol) |
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 Cover of the English edition |
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| Publisher | Casterman |
|---|---|
| Date | 1956 |
| Series | The Adventures of Tintin (Les aventures de Tintin) |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Hergé |
| Artist(s) | Hergé |
| Original publication | |
| Published in | Tintin |
| Date(s) of publication | December 22, 1954 - February 22, 1956 |
| Language | French |
| ISBN | ISBN 2-203-00117-8 |
| Translation | |
| Publisher | Methuen |
| Date | 1960 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-35847-9 |
| Translator(s) | Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Explorers on the Moon, 1954 |
| Followed by | The Red Sea Sharks, 1958 |
The Calculus Affair (French: L'Affaire Tournesol) is the eighteenth of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums, written and illustrated by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé, featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero.
Some, such as Benoit Peeters, in his book Tintin and the World of Hergé have labelled this as the greatest of the series. The Tintin website [1] dubs The Calculus Affair as the most "detective-like" of the whole series.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The story is set in the 1950s, several months after Tintin and his friends have returned from the Moon. Tintin and Captain Haddock are on a stroll in the countryside around Marlinspike, but are suddenly caught out by an approaching thunderstorm and rush back to the manor.
Events take a mysterious turn during the storm. Inside Marlinspike, several items of glass within the house mysteriously break for no apparent reason. Then, Jolyon Wagg, an annoyingly gregarious and impolite insurance salesman, turns up uninvited to seek shelter. He claims that all the windows of his car have somehow blown to bits.
Once the storm passes, Wagg leaves, but gunshots are heard from outside, and Wagg is found hiding in the bushes. Another man is also found injured but then disappears. In the midst of the mystery, Professor Calculus, returns to the house that night with bullet holes in his hat. Calculus, somewhat apathetic to the whole series of events, leaves the following day to attend a conference in Geneva.
When he is gone, things grow calmer. Tintin suspects that the strange events may have been connected with Calculus, and suggests to Haddock that they have a look inside his laboratory. They find a strange sonic device and are surprised by an eastern European wearing a trenchcoat and a mask. The intruder escapes after punching Haddock. However, Snowy bites off the trenchcoat's pocket, and two items fall out: a key and a box of cigarettes with the name of the Hotel Cornavin (where Calculus is staying in Geneva) scrawled onto it. Concerned that Calculus is in danger, Tintin and Haddock decide to follow him to Switzerland.
In Geneva, Tintin and Haddock miss Calculus at his hotel by seconds, delayed by two men dressed in the same trenchcoats as the man in the lab. They track Calculus to Nyon, at the home of Professor Topolino, an expert in ultrasonics. On the way to Nyon their taxi is forced into a nearby lake, but they manage to get out and reach Topolino's house. Calculus's umbrella is there but he is not and Topolino is found bound and gagged in his own cellar. Topolino claims that it was Calculus's doing but after being shown his photograph, he realises that an impostor posing as Calculus attacked him. Tintin determines that Calculus has now been kidnapped. The same two men who had earlier impeded Tintin and Haddock's efforts to find Calculus in Geneva blow up Topolino's house in an attempt to kill them all, but they survive nonetheless.
Tintin and Haddock conclude that the sonic device that they found in the laboratory was responsible for the breakages at Marlinspike. However, the breaking of glass is just the beginning. Calculus also discovered how to turn the device into a weapon which could destroy metal, including buildings, tanks etc. Concerned of the consequences of such a thing, he had decided to talk it over with Topolino, whom he consulted by letter while developing the device. But Topolino's manservant, a Bordurian named Boris, learned of this and informed his country's intelligence service.
It soon dawns on them that rival teams of agents from both Syldavia and Borduria have knowledge of the device and its potential. Abducted at first by Bordurians, Calculus is dramatically seized by Syldavian agents in spite of Tintin and Haddock's efforts to rescue him, which are thwarted from a long distance by none other than Wagg: while pursuing the Syldavians across Lake Geneva into France, Haddock tries to contact the police by radio; he instead gets through to Wagg who turns down all pleas to contact the authorities, thinking that the whole thing is a wind-up on Haddock's part. Later, when Nestor, the Marlinspike butler, tells Haddock that Calculus's lab has been robbed, Wagg again interrupts the call, dismissing the whole thing of as no importance, and preventing Haddock from getting any details on the investigation.
After being pursued by Tintin and Haddock through the French countryside, the Syldavians escape in a plane, with Calculus as their prisoner. However, the plane is forced down over Bordurian territory, and tension between the two nations increases. Tintin and Haddock set off for Borduria in hope of finding their friend again.
Throughout the story, the two have been followed continuously by Bordurian spies, and their location comes to the attention of the Bordurian Chief of Secret Police, the notorious Colonel Sponsz, who arranges for them to be picked up at the airport of the Bordurian capital, Szohod, assigned two minders who restrict their movements, and taken to a luxury hotel which is full of secret listening devices. Sponsz presumably hopes to prevent them from rescuing Calculus and get information from them that will coerce him into giving the plans of the sonic device to the Bordurians.
Meanwhile, at a secret meeting of Bordurian military officials, the capability of Calculus's device is revealed: Bordurian scientists have discovered its potential to destroy glass and clay, and are conducting research using the original prototype to use it as a weapon of mass destruction.
Escaping from the hotel into the nearby Szohod Opera House, Tintin and Haddock have a run-in with Bianca Castafiore, whom by chance, Sponsz visits in her dressing room to congratulate upon her performance. Tintin and Haddock hide in Bianca's closet, overhearing the conversation between Sponsz and Castafiore (an ironic twist of events given that it was he who tried to listen to theirs at the hotel). Sponsz reveals Calculus's location, a prison outside of town, and the pressure on him to surrender his plans. If he does give them up, then he will be handed over to two officials from the Red Cross, to whom he must swear that he went to the Bordurians of his own accord and gave them his plans voluntarily.
Overhearing all this, Tintin and Haddock disguise themselves as the two officials and seize Calculus, escaping from Borduria in a car and later a tank. Realising the catastrophic potential of his invention, Calculus burns his plans.
[edit] Notable features
- The Calculus Affair introduces the character of Jolyon Wagg, who reappears in several later adventures.
- This is also the first story to feature Cutts the Butcher. All calls to him end up at Marlinspike Hall where Nestor and Haddock are plagued with endless orders for lamb chops and sausages. The irony is that when he tries to make a call, from whichever location, it is Haddock who gets put through to Cutts first. The driver of Cutts' van also plays an important part in the story: giving Calculus a lift to the village and unknowingly thwarting a kidnapping attempt.
- Colonel Sponsz also makes his first appearance. He was to be mentioned in The Castafiore Emerald and would return to take his revenge on Tintin, Haddock, Calculus and Castafiore in Tintin and the Picaros.
- In the crowd of day trippers camped outside the gates of Marlinspike, a caricature of Hergé himself can be spotted.
- The graphics include accurate renditions of Geneva, the Hotel Cornavin, the railway station and Geneva Cointrin International Airport. Many Tintin fans in later years, when at the Hotel Cornavin, would ask to stay in "Professor Calculus's room" (Room 122, fourth floor), which did not actually exist. To clarify the matter, Hergé sent the Hotel a cut-out of Tintin, explaining that it was not possible to stay in the Professor's room.
- The uniforms of the Bordurian police appear to be based on those of Hungarian police of the time, which they closely resemble. (The Hungarian Uprising took place eight months after the serialisation of the strip ended.)
- A famous sight gag from this album involves Haddock trying to get rid of a piece of sticking plaster that keeps returning to him. This gag was repeated in Flight 714, although it is limited to only three panels.
- Another famous scene involves a car chase with a mad Italian driver. When a gendarme eventually stops them and asks for his name, he recites it in full: Arturo Benedetto Giovanni Giuseppe Pietro Archangelo Alfredo Cartoffoli da Milano. Rather confused by this, the gendarme weakly lets him go.
[edit] Remarks
The political background of The Calculus Affair is the Cold War and the measures that both sides would go to in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
The book in Professor Topolino's house, German Research in World War II by Leslie E. Simon, really existed and was published in 1947. Simon was a retired Major General in the U.S. Army. This explains why the red-and-white rocket on the dust-jacket of the book is remarkably similar to the Moon Rocket from Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon; that design was based on the German V-2 Rocket.
The physical appearance of Colonel Sponsz is based on Herge's brother, Paul Remi, a career soldier.[2] Paul had been the original inspiration for Tintin himself back in 1929. Dubbed "Major Tintin", he took on a new appearance in an attempt to get away from the image. This new look was to serve as the model for Sponsz, who would reappear in Tintin and the Picaros.
It seems possible that the research interests of Professor Calculus as portrayed in The Calculus Affair, were based upon those of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich who in his later life became convinced of the existence of a form of energy which he called "orgone." Among the devices constructed by Reich to capture or manipulate "orgone" was the Cloudbuster which he claimed could be used to induce rain by forcing clouds to form and disperse - a device similar to that portrayed within 'The Calculus Affair' intended to destroy buildings by using focused rays of energy.[citation needed] Albert Einstein engaged in some correspondence with Reich which was later published as The Einstein Affair - a probable inspiration for the title of 'The Calculus Affair'.
The cover of the album has the main illustration surrounded by a shattered piece of glass.
[edit] The Calculus Case
'The Calculus Case' was a film adaptation of The Calculus Affair (L'affaire Tournesol). It was produced in 1959 by the company Belvision. Originally it was a television series made up of several short segments shown but presented by the english television into a full length film. In the 1980s it was released on VHS across the UK. In the early 2000s it was released on DVD only in english. See The Calculus Case at the Internet Movie Database
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Tintin.com
- ^ De Grootste Belg (in Dutch)
[edit] External links
- The Calculus Affair at Tintinologist.org
