review of Tom McCarthy's 'Tintin and the Secret of Literature'--his novel "Remainder" is well worth seeking out--

"McCarthy is telling us less about, say, what literature is than what it isn't. We come to a novel expecting it to tell us everything that it can, to be replete. McCarthy lifts the rug to show us that the more a story tells us, the more it hides. Channeling Barthes, McCarthy characterizes Tintin -- whose exploits so often involve misread missives, misunderstood map coordinates, misconstruction of another character's language -- as standing "guardian . . . at the heart of a noise." In all his adventures around the globe, Tintin is constantly trying to decode clues he's been given, constantly finding himself mired in perils, from which he inevitably escapes, only to compulsively reboot the fiendish cycle again and again. All his labors turn out to be frustratingly like those of Sisyphus -- unending. Whenever he figures out a particular enigma, it only unleashes more enigmas, sending him off on yet another quest. For McCarthy, as for Barthes, this is the "secret" of literature..."

(pssst!)