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Mood: Amused ]
[ Currently: Enjoying Naptime! ]
While on my mat leave, I have been taking the time to go through my favourite books from childhood. This means that I am rereading the Anne of Green Gables and Trixie Belden series.
As part of this, I have turned to the French bande dessiners that my immersion teachers used to help teach me. Tintin was one of these. So it was with joy that I picked up the first of his adventures, in the original French, to read.
This black and white reproduction of the original strip is facisnating in its focus. Clearly grounded in the time it was written, this is nothing more than a piece of anti-soviet propoganda aimed at children. Full of violence and ethnic stereotypes, this is a cartoon in the every sense of the word. The ethnic stereotypes move beyond the soviets, with Germans and Chinese also finding themselves targets. As I read it, I found myself thinking, if the censors have trouble with Tintin au Congo, then they will have problems with this too. This book is for the Tintin completist only.
Still, I enjoyed teh trip back in time and will continue my reading, although I may bring my Larousse along to look up the more obscure vocabulary.