This is the sixth in Hergé's 'Adventures of Tintin' and it's the first that isn't clearly better than its predecessor. That's a little surprising, given that some of the best in the series are soon to come, but it is what it is. The positive side is that the story is clearly visualised and capably constructed, much of it focused around a MacGuffin being sought on one side by Tintin and on the other by an overt pair of villains, Alonso and Ramón. Why, we don't yet know, because it doesn't matter. It's a MacGuffin! That's also why the title doesn't mean anything for the longest time.

The MacGuffin is a fetish, made by the Arumbaya tribe who live on the banks of the Coliflor in the fictional Republic of San Theodoros in South America. It's stolen from the Museum of Ethnography on the first page and returned with an apology on the third. Apparently the anonymous thief, who only signs with an X, had bet a friend that he could steal something from the museum and, having won that bet, is happy to give the fetish back. All's well that ends well. Well, not quite.

It's Tintin who realises that only a fake was returned, having spent page two in research, reading a book by A. J. Walker, the British explorer who was given the fetish by the Arumbayans during his travels there in 1875. The real fetish has part of its right ear missing. That discovery is fair enough, because he's actively doing research, but in the first of a series of deus ex machina interventions, he promptly stumbles on news of the death of Jacob Balthazar, a sculptor gassed in his rooms who specialised in primitive statuettes. Connecting the dots is not rocket science.

While Tintin's initial deductions at Balthazar's flat are solid and the use of his talkative parrot to spin some adventure is handled with agreeable humour, that deus ex machina moment sadly sets the scene for a whole bunch more of them to follow. Later, in South America, a time bomb fails due to a power cut. Tintin escapes captivity through the convenience of a lightning strike. And, at one point he's about to be shot by a firing squad as a terrorist, only to be freed by news of a successful revolution, prepared to be shot again after the revolution turns out to have failed, and then freed again when it succeeds after all. It all gets to be a bit much.

Now, those revolutionary shenanigans are actually a lot of fun. Sure, it's a cheap way to get Tintin out of a cliffhanger, but it's also a neat way to highlight how tempestuous life is in San Theodoros. The telling panels on this page aren't really Tintin about to be shot, they're of the members of the firing squad who cheer the news of each change in power with exactly the same words, only taking care to replace the name of their new illustrious leader. Similarly, the latest of those, Gen. Alcazar, apparently has 49 corporals but 3,487 colonels. When Col. Diaz points that out to him, he demotes him to Cpl. Diaz.

On the same lines, the arrival of an American, R. W. Trickler, representing General American Oil, sets the stage for a war. His company believes they've discovered oil deposits in Gran Chapo, which is a desert that crosses from San Theodoros into the neighbouring Nuevo-Rico. He's on the spot as quickly as the oil companies in 'Tintin in America' who evict a Native American tribe off their own land when black gold is struck, and he's just as unscrupulous, offering $100,000 for Alcazar, to steal the rest of the desert from Nuevo-Rico, prompting a war. Later, we learn that the surveyors were wrong and there is no oil, and, just like that, peace is declared.

This isn't a particularly nuanced look at South American politics, but it's not inaccurate. In fact, it was based on fact, the Chaco War of 1932-35 being fought over oil fields in the Gran Chaco region. Gran Chapo is just a french pun, meaning "big hat", just as Nuevo-Rico is "nouveau riche" and its capital, Sanfacion, is "without manners". Another little detail is that an arms dealer shows up to sell the same amount of the same weapons to both sides and he's real too, Basil Bazorov being a thinly veiled take on Basil Zaharoff, who did exactly that for Vickers Armstrong. Here, of course, they're not mentioned and Bazorov works for the telling Korrupt Arms GMBH.

None of that is particularly important to the plot, other than somehow Tintin finds himself in the right place to be made another of Alcaraz's colonels, thus keeping him right there in the thick of the action as it goes down. Much of that is far more personal than revolution, though. It's the two villains, Alonso and Ramón, trying to dispose of Tintin so they can get the fetish they think he has, even though he's actually looking for it too. This involves a lot of cartoonish bombs and dynamite, of the sort we expect in 'Pink Panther' movies and employed with much the same effect.

That dip into cheaper humour doesn't work for me. There's plenty of quality subtle humour here, like a pristine panel featuring a ship's steward talked into drinks by the villains, who's going back to work while saying how he doesn't want the captain to find out, not realising that the captain is right behind him tapping his fingers in discontent. That's a level above many of the names in play, South American characters called things like Karamelo, Rodrigo Tortilla and Gen. Tapioca. There's a tribe called the Rumbabas, traditional enemies of the Arumbayas, and a rich American, Samuel Goldbarr. None of those are good, yet they're all a level above cartoon masks and bombs.

Fortunately, the story continues to skip along in a steady manner, so we can accordingly skip past the lesser moments. It's not as frantic as earlier books, Hergé is happy to set a slower but far more consistent pace that still allows for plenty of action, intrigue and reversals of fortune. Eventually, of course, Tintin ends up among the Arumbayas, where he's fortunate to meet a British explorer, lost and presumed dead long ago, who's actually been happily living among them, even teaching them his language, even if it looks opaque to us.

I've read that, unlike 'The Blue Lotus', which Hergé populated with accurate Mandarin, due to the help of a Chinese friend, the language here was entirely imaginary. In the English translation, it's apparently imaginary until we read carefully, at which point we discover that it's a phonetic take on a London accent like Cockney. I presume that's the work of the translators, but it's a lot of fun. See what you can make of "Cohrluv ahduk! Ai tolja tahitta ferlip inbaul intada oh'l!" No, that's not gibberish. Now try reading it as "Cor, love a duck! I told you to hit a flipping ball into the hole!" The explorer has taught them golf too.

These scenes are fun for reasons other than language play. It's notable that almost every regular person in this book is decent, from Tintin down to servants and tribesmen. The Arumbaya treated Walker well and they're treating this explorer, Ridgewell, the same. There's nothing different in San Theodoros, one notable peasant hired to murder Tintin, only to fail and be let go by a rather understanding intended victim, and he swears to change. He does exactly that and helps our hero out of a fix not much later in the story. This even extends to ship captains, but many of the people with power, which doesn't necessarily mean wealth, are very likely to be corrupt, whether they're presidents or international businessmen.

I enjoyed 'The Broken Ear', as flawed as it is. It's much better than earlier books that took Tintin to countries with poor and oppressed natives, like 'Tintin in the Congo' and 'Tintin in America', even with our hero disguised at one point in blackface as a painfully stereotypical African character. It's an enjoyable book, but it's also a clear step backwards from the double whammy of 'Cigars of the Pharaoh' and especially 'The Blue Lotus', even with such a surreal gem of a panel as the one that has winged and pitchforked devils carrying away our villains.

Next up, 'The Black Island', another early book I don't recall reading in my youth, before some of the titles I absolutely know I enjoyed, like 'King Ottakar's Sceptre' and 'The Crab with the Golden Claws'. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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