Hergé: Tintin in Tibet

While relaxing in the mountains, Tintin receives a letter from his Chinese friend Chan, who writes that he will soon fly to London and they can finally see each other after a long separation. Chan's route to Europe lies through Kathmandu, where the young Chinese plans to visit his adoptive father's cousin. However, after the joyful news comes tragic news: Chan’s plane crashed in the Himalayas. According to newspaper reports, there are no survivors of the plane crash, but, contrary to common sense, Tintin is convinced that his friend is alive - after all, he dreamed about him yesterday! Drowning in the snow, the exhausted Chan stretched out his hands to Tintin and begged for help. Tintin decides to urgently fly to Kathmandu in order to climb from there to the place where the plane crashed. Of course, Captain Haddock can't let him go alone...

“Tintin in Tibet” stands apart in Hergé’s work. Almost all Tintinologists consider this album to be the best. It was he who finally secured Hergé’s status as one of the most significant authors of the twentieth century. “Tintin in Tibet” is an absolutely intimate, smooth album. It's a joke, in fact, there is not even a conflict in it; Moreover, not a single negative character! The number of characters here is kept to a minimum. There are three people in the center of the story - Tintin, the captain and Milou. For the first time in many years, we do not see the Dupondts on the pages. The appearances of Tournesol can be counted on one hand. There are almost no references to previous albums so beloved by Hergé. Nothing – just the blinding whiteness of the endless snows of Tibet, in which researchers (taking into account the drastic changes in the author’s personal life) see an allegory of a “blank slate”, a new beginning. In other words, “Tintin in Tibet” is an initiation album, an immersion album (first of all, into oneself). Did the same Captain Haddock, for example, know that “there lives in him a faith that can move mountains”?

Author: Hergé

Translation: Mikhail Khachaturov

Pages: 64 (offset). Hardcover

Dimensions: 290×217×10 mm