There's a lot of history behind 'The Blue Lotus', which renders it even more pivotal to the series as a whole than its predecessor, 'Cigars of the Pharaoh', to which it serves as a second half, these two books both originating as parts of 'The Adventures of Tintin, Reporter in the Far East', which was serialised in 'Le Petit Vingtième' from 1932 to 1935.

It's notable for its highly coherent plot, in which we still enjoy all the expected cliffhangers but in an order that makes far more sense to the story as a whole. There are no more jaunts to India for no apparent reason but that Tintin can get a shower from an elephant, for instance, as happened in 'Cigars of the Pharaoh'. As always, the cliffhangers are very much in the movie serial vein, but I would call the increasingly sophisticated back-and-forth cat-and-mouse intrigue far more akin to pulp adventure fiction.

It's notable for its attention to cultural detail, a huge change from the previous book, in which the Arabic used in the artwork was apparently gibberish. Here, the Chinese and Japanese language is authentic, even if most western readers wouldn't understand it. That's because of the influence of a Chinese student in Belgium, Zhang Chongren, with whom Hergé was put in touch while he was in research phase. The two became fast friends, so much so that the author immortalised him in the story as a Chinese boy, Chang Chong-chen. Tintin and Chang save each other's lives in this book.

It's notable for its tolerance to other cultures, also much influenced by Zhang but also influenced by books and articles that Hergé read in preparation. I've mentioned in previous reviews how the newspaper that 'Tintin' was serialised in was both right wing and Roman Catholic, factors that led earlier books such as 'Tintin in the Congo' and, to a lesser degree, 'Tintin in America', to embrace  negative stereotypes and promote colonialism. This does the opposite, because the author had a serious amount of control over his content for the first time and he clearly speaks out to dissolve stereotypes and lambast colonialism. It almost feels like the work of a different author.

And it's notable for its historical backdrop. While this starts in India, with Tintin and Snowy guests of the Maharaja of Gaipajama, the action soon moves to Shanghai and stays in China throughout. The year is 1931, so the backdrop is the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which was previously and subsequently part of mainland China. The lead villain is a Japanese secret agent and we're there with Tintin watching him blow up the Shanghai-Nanking railway and report it as an act of Chinese sabotage. The news spreads quickly, growing from insignificant damage to hundreds dead in quite the political act. Now armies march and Japan claims to be the "guardian of law and civilisation in the Far East" in a speech to the League of Nations. This isn't afraid to get political.

However, that is very much the backdrop and the thrust of the story is a continuation of the drug smuggling angle that constituted 'Cigars of the Pharaoh'. As we kick off, that smuggling ring has been smashed and all but the gang leader are behind bars. However, there are still questions yet to be answered. Where were all those cigars going with their secreted caches of opium? Who was the gang's mastermind who apparently tumbled to his death but whose body was never found? It falls to this book to answer those questions.

The first clue comes in Gaipajama, as Tintin has become a fan of shortwave radio and he's trying to identify a mysterious station that sends mysterious messages. Eventually he cracks the code and that leads him to 'The Blue Lotus' of the title, which is an opium den in Shanghai which continues to play a major part in the story through to its conclusion. I should point out here that the Indians look completely normal and are treated with civility and respect, even the wild-looking fakir who foretells Tintin's future on the second page, after an excellent sight gag featuring a soft cushion.

Tintin soon travels to Shanghai, because a Chinese messenger from there arrives to talk with him and, before he succumbs to the Rajaijah juice in the dart he's promptly shot with to send him mad, he speaks a name: Mitsuhirato. In Shanghai, the Chinese look completely normal too and are also treated with civility and respect, at least by both Hergé and his lead character. The Japanese are more stereotypical, Mitsuhirato having buck teeth and round spectacles, but they're the villains.

After all, we might not screen 'Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips' nowadays because it's blatantly racist, but nobody had a problem with it on original release during the Second World War because the entire point was to make fun of the then-enemy. Even with that caveat, not one character is drawn with yellow skin, even if that's mentioned in the fakir's warning, and nobody speaks in clichéd sing song pidgin or swaps their Rs and Ls.

In fact, Hergé reserves his blistering satire, last seen in the scene in 'Tintin in America' where the white businessmen sweep in like magic to kick a tribe of Native Americans off their own land once oil is struck, for supporting western characters. The most biting is hurled at another businessman from America, Gibbons by name, who berates Tintin's Chinese rickshaw driver and beats him with his walking staff, after he walks into the road without looking and gets knocked over. Tintin backs up his driver, calling Gibbons's conduct disgraceful, but the man promptly wanders off to his club to bitch at his friends, clearly British and American white men. He attacks a Chinese waiter for no reason while ranting about his "superb western civilisation". It's a brutal and very telling scene.

One of those friends is Dawson, the Chief of Police of the Shanghai International Settlement, who continually abuses his power to help Gibbons and hinder Tintin. We later learn that Mitsuhirato is in possession of an IOU that states that Dawson owes him ten grand. Once again, everything with Americans comes down to money, which is prescient, and corruption naturally follows in its wake. Notably, his story arc is the only one that isn't closed out during the final pages and I do wonder if that's because Hergé saw potential to re-use him in a future book, which he eventually did.

Things progress much as we might expect, but with a glorious and consistent flow for the first time that's always fast but never breakneck. Hergé also displays a real mastery of intrigue, with a pair of early assassination attempts and subsequent rescues being not entirely what they seem. In the first, a mysterious Chinese stranger saves Tintin from a hail of bullets, but then runs away. In the second, an assassin's bullet that shatters his cup of tea turns out to be the work of the same man, who was stopping him being drugged. Eventually, Tintin learns that he works for the Sons of the Dragon, a Chinese secret society dedicated to eradicating the international opium trade, and they and their leader, Wang Chen-yee, prove to be his most able allies in this book.

I won't spoil everyone else who shows up, because there are recurring characters here, not all of them returnees from 'Cigars of the Pharaoh'. The ones I will mention are Thomson and Thompson, the almost identical bungling English detectives, who are tasked at one point with arresting their friend Tintin. They also display a lack of accurate cultural knowledge, because they put on what to them are appropriate disguises, only to be mandarin outfits a century or more adrift from what Chinese people are wearing at this point in time. At least they don't do it with malice, but they do it out of ignorance.

The most telling scene, other than Gibbons's ironic rant in the Occidental Private Club, is the one after Tintin rescues Chang Chong-chen from being drowned when the Yangtse-Kiang floods. He's young and Chinese and has only heard inappropriately negative stories about westerners. Tintin outlines similarly inappropriately negative stories about Chinese that young western kids learn and that's when the two become fast friends, their bigotry, however unintended, dissolved. That scene is especially telling because, while Chang is a fictional take on Hergé Chinese friend, Zhang Chongren, the bigotry Tintin highlights was very much what Hergé himself thought until he did a fair amount of research. That's brutal honesty.

I liked this a lot, from its earliest scenes in India to its final ones in Shanghai, with everyone's arcs wrapped up neatly except for Dawson's. That includes Japan rejecting the allegations about their sabotage in the real life Mukden Incident which led to their invasion of Manchuria, withdrawing from that territory and even resigning from the League of Nations. All these things happened in history, merely not quite to these timeframes and without the intervention of a young journalist from Belgium. Well, at least as far as we're aware... ~~ Hal C F Astell

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