{"id":2833,"date":"2021-08-23T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2833"},"modified":"2024-02-08T08:32:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T08:32:59","slug":"book-review-prisoners-of-the-sun-herge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2833","title":{"rendered":"BOOK REViEW: Prisoners of the Sun, Herg\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"512\" height=\"682\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Tintin_14_Prisoners.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3064\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Tintin_14_Prisoners.png 512w, http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Tintin_14_Prisoners-225x300.png 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"155\" height=\"30\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Stars_10_Five-24.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3065\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Stars_10_Five-24.jpg 155w, http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Stars_10_Five-24-150x30.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 155px) 100vw, 155px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst it\u2019s the follow up to <em>The Seven Crystal Balls<\/em>, <em>Prisoners of the Su<\/em>n is quite different. Whereas <em>Balls<\/em> is very much a European affair, with lots of comedy and interpersonal drama, Prisoners is an exotic Peruvian travelogue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The artwork is fabulous, beautifully evoking everything from the flora and fauna to the varied landscapes. And in this quintessentially adventurous album, nature in its many guises &#8211; mountains, forests, rivers &#8211; and exotic peoples and animals, a as ll play their part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Herg\u00e9 loved National Geographic magazine, and <em>Prisoners<\/em> is a kind of Boys Own Adventure version of NG, on steroids. The hokum of the Inca sacrilege thread is pure \u2018McGuffin\u2019, by which I mean plot driving yet immaterial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By this stage, Herg\u00e9 had come a long way from the anti-Soviet and colonialist roots of the first two albums (<em>Soviets<\/em> and <em>Congo<\/em>). And yet whilst Tintin is proud to appear to respect the Inca and stand up for natives bullied by \u2018foreigners\u2019, neither he nor Herg\u00e9 have entirely escaped the white man\u2019s burden of condescension, witness the \u2018playing\u2019 of Western scientific knowledge against native superstition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it\u2019s great that we can still enjoy this classic serving of Tintin in-Bowdlerised; beautifully rendered if still laden with the assumptions of its times. It\u2019s a cracking good adventure. A as of a great deal of fun. Love it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whilst it\u2019s the follow up to The Seven Crystal Balls, Prisoners of the Sun is quite different. Whereas Balls is very much a European affair, with lots of comedy and interpersonal drama, Prisoners is an exotic Peruvian travelogue. The artwork is fabulous, beautifully evoking everything from the flora and fauna to the varied landscapes. And &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=2833\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;BOOK REViEW: Prisoners of the Sun, Herg\u00e9&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-JH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2833"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11388,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2833\/revisions\/11388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}