Vol 714 Pour Sydney: Flight 714 for Sydney [French] [Hardcover]

"Vol 714 pour Sydney" is not your average comic book adventure story crafted merely for young readers.

Tintin, his dog Snowy, and their friends Captain Haddock and Calculus are en route to Sydney to attend an astronautical conference. During a brief stop over in Jakarta, they meet millionaire, Laszlo Carreidas, known as "the man who never laughs". When the antics of the deaf and lovable Professor Calculus actually manage to make Carreidas howl with laughter, he expresses his appreciation by inviting them to continue their journey to Sydney aboard his prototype business jet, the Carreidas 160.

When the jet is hijacked, our intrepid group of travelers find themselves in the power of greedy criminals who want a good deal more than the prototype jet ... they're also determined to lay their hands on the wealth that Carreidas has squirreled away in a numbered Swiss bank account. And, of course, they're not planning on leaving any witnesses behind.

Je n'avais que dix ans quand j'ai lu Vol 714 (en anglais) la première fois. Presque cinquante ans plus tard, l'histoire, c'est encore puissante et passionante; les actions, même les émotions transmises par l'oeuvre d'art sont convaincantes; et, bien sur, Tournesol et Haddock sont plus amusants, comiques et drôles que jamais. Avec des volcans, lave chaude et des tremblements de terre, des soucoupes volantes, une civilisation ancienne et un temple souterrain, hypnose et amnésie collective, "Vol 714 pour Sydney" est une histoire bien étrange qui ne peut pas échouer à vous amuser. Des parents peuvent être rassurés qu'elle se prête bien aux lecteurs de n'importe quel age.

The reason I chose to read the original French edition so many years later was simply to brush up on my French reading skills which I have left to languish unattended and untested for far too long. It seems I made the perfect choice. Not only did the hints from the story-line as revealed through the art mean that I didn't have to consult a French-English dictionary even once, I was also thrilled to be able to interpret several French idioms purely on the basis of context! For example:

"Je vous tiens à l'oeil"
... literally, "I'm holding you to the eye"
... figuratively, "I've got my eye on you"

"La voie est libre"
... literally, "the way is free:
... figuratively, "the coast is clear"

"J'ai la chair de poule"
... literally, "I have chicken flesh"
... figuratively, "I've got goose bumps"

Great fun to read for any purpose and certainly of significant value in brushing up on French reading skills at an intermediate level.

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

"Vol 714 pour Sydney" ("Flight 714") is sort of the generic Adventure of Tintin, with a little bit of everything that Hergé put into his stories to make this one of the landmark comic book series since Cortes discovered pre-Columbian picture manuscripts in 1519. A Qantas Boeing 707, Flight 714 from London touches down at Kemajoran Airport in Djakarta, java, last stop before Sydney, Australia. Disembarking is our hero, Milou, Captain Haddock, and Professor Tournesol. As they stretch their legs the good Captain spots a forlorn figure and slips a $5 bill into the man's hat. Of course no good deed of Haddock's goes unpunished and it turns out the old man is Mr. Carreidas, "The millionaire who never laughs." Well, Professor Tournesol quickly takes care of that and Carreidas insists on flying Tintin and his friends to Australia on his special jet. Haddock is looking forward to a pleasure trip, an ordinary flight and no adventures, but fate has something else in mind.

"Flight 714," which actually does not have a single panel of the titular plane being anyplace other than on the ground, offers up a hijacking, a cutting edge prototype means of transportation, an exotic island in the middle of nowhere, an evil scientist with truth serum, a gigantic stone head pagan idol, a threatening lava flow, the return of an old familiar villain, a space ship, and Tintin running around a lot with a gun. Pretty much all of these elements have popped up in the previous twenty Adventures of Tintin that Hergé had told over the previous decades. For that reason this particular adventure strikes me as something of a curtain call for Tintin and his friends, even though this is the penultimate tale and Dupont and Dupond are no place to be seen. The chief charm is that Tournesol has somebody new to tangle with in Carriedas, thereby relieving Captain Haddock of the responsibility for testing the eccentric professor's patience. So I see "Vol 714 pour Sydney" as being an average offering from Hergé, which still means it is an above average comic book adventure. After this tale, there is but one more of les Aventures de Tintin for us to enjoy.