Over at TNR: Javier MarÃas on politicians seeming fictional.
And isn’t the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, with his vociferous curses against the United States, the small, fat, childish king who makes appearances in the Tintin and Capitan Trueno adventures? (It’s easy to imagine Chavez dressed in a pointed crown and christening robe and baring his barrel chest.)
Not all that randomly, the above excerpt immediately put me in mind of Thomas McCarthy’s Tintin and the Secret of Literature. Which, in turn, reminded me that I need to actually, well, read some Tintin. (As well as the work of Rutu Modan.)