Word: young
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...More so than anything else I read at a young age, Tintin kindled my fascination with writing, foreign affairs and travel. The eponymous hero of Herge's series is a young newspaper journalist who travels about the world solving one scandalous affair after another (and manages to spend surprisingly zero time at the office). Opium smuggling in the Orient, counterfeiting schemes in Scotland and underwater treasuring hunting pose no problem for the resourceful Tintin. With the aid of Captain Haddock and pet dog Snowy, Tintin makes short work of the thugs and brings the ringleaders to justice...
...when I return to these children's books with an adult eye, this world becomes a stranger and much more melancholic place. For all his glamor and gumption, Tintin is an emotionally inscrutable character. Like another eternally young character, Peter Pan, Tintin's refusal to grow up (or settle down) betrays an ineffable sadness that clings to his beige trenchcoat...
...What keeps Tintin moving at this relentless pace? The young reader takes it for granted that Tintin will always be on the move, just as he assumes that the Hardy Boys will always be on the trail of one more mystery. But for the grownup reader, it's difficult not to interpret Tintin's constant motion as an evasion of mortality. Tintin's metabolism, like that of all other children's book characters, is governed by a simple law: Stop moving and you grow old and die. Archie and Jughead keep driving around suburbia for the very reason that once...
...they take a break between songs, a young man adds to their bounty, dropping in a thick gold ring as he pledges, "That's 14 karat gold...
...investor fears that AT&T's headlong rush into cable is burying the company in debt. "AT&T has made a very smart move," says Baumohl. "They get a little cash, plus they've presumably locked up the software to go with their new hardware." After all, lots of young couples start out with big mortgages...