For the past couple of weeks, Asterix the Gaul’s 50th birthday has been the subject of sustained media attention, thanks largely to the tributes that erupted all over Paris throughout October. (In 1959, a short Asterix and Obelix comic strip in the magazine Pilote was published — it wasn’t until 1961 that the first full “album”, Asterix the Gaul, started a ball rolling that soon became known as “le phénomène Astérix”. So be prepared for further celebrations come 2011.)
But, depressingly, most commentators have seen the golden jubilee of René Goscinny’s and Albert Uderzo’s greatest creation as an opportunity to explore the way in which the Asterix brand has become a little tarnished in recent years — following the mediocre film adaptations starring Gérard Depardieu, for example, as well as Uderzo’s decision to sell the series rights to the mega-publisher Hachette and the high-profile feud with his daughter that ensued — and to ignore the undiminished brilliance of the books themselves. A piece that appeared in the Times is typical. “It happens to plenty of men,” it suggested. “They turn 50 and all the vim disappears. But it shouldn’t happen if you have access to a magic potion that revives your powers faster than Viagra.”
An excellent essay by Mary Beard that appeared in the LRB a few years ago does a better job of celebrating Goscinny’s and Uderzo’s genius. It even reserves praise for the several albums that Uderzo has composed alone since Goscinny’s premature death in 1977 (which have been the focus of some particularly scathing birthday criticism).
But having spent the weekend rereading my collection of Asterix and Obelix titles, I think that something rather important has, for some reason, gone largely unacknowledged in all the furore: how extraordinarily well both men’s work (and, of course, Anthea Bell’s and Derek Hockridge’s English translation has aged. Far better than, say, Tintin in the Congo, yes. But, more than that, in a manner which makes the fact that they were written decades ago almost entirely irrelevant.
Which raises the question: why is it that Asterix stories feel as fresh as they do, thirty or fifty years on? Here are three suggestions of mine. Feel free to make any of your own in the comment box below.
Literary references: The stories’ penchant for referring to cultural touchstones — Asterix in Belgium (1979) opens “with apologies to: George Gordon, Lord Byron, Mr Wm Shakespeare, Mr John Milton and Peter Breughel the Elder” — is well known. That these references invariably come from canonical classics — from Horace’s Odes to Cervantes’s Don Quixote (the eponymous knight-errant and his squire make a cameo appearance in Asterix in Spain (1969) — ensures that Asterix’s adventures feel timeless.
Metanarrative: Asterix in Belgium and Asterix and Son (1983) feature flourishes of an altogether contemporary literary postmodernism. “Look, we’re only just starting this story,” Asterix explains early on in the former. “It’s much too soon for a banquet.”
Well-chosen modern touches: Instead of alluding to 1960s- and 1970s-specific issues that might have quickly lost their relevance, the books ingeniously make use of durable modern ideas. So, a character in Asterix and Caesar’s Gift (1974) suggests that “if anyone ever decides to go digging up the past behind this house, he’ll have a few archaeological problems on his hands”. And Obelix points out in Asterix and the Banquet (1965) that, compared to boar, “Oysters are all right, but you can eat boar even when there isn’t an ‘r’ in the month . . .”
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