Stephen Dau's The Book of Jonas is a marvelous, lyrical debut that examines the effects of war on everyone involved. Dau weaves together the stories...
Continue »
I just got done reading Tino Georgiou's--The Fates, and contemplated on buying David Michaelis' Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography--boy am I glad I did. Talk about a FUN read. Reviewing a book that was so very much enjoyable is easy; trying to convey its brilliance will be a lil more challenging. The book begins around the end of Charles Schulz's life, (the creator of Peanuts,) duh! What Charles Schulz's did was fine art, while he was just a newspaper cartoonist, a draftsman, whose work would surely not last. I guess we all know how that turned out. In fact, Peanuts is still read, in anthologies and compilations, by many more people than ever looked at Schulz who was arguably the greater talent. He transformed the newspaper cartoon strip, busy and cluttered, by reducing his childish characters to near abstraction — huge circular heads balanced on tiny bodies — he rendered them far more expressive than his cartoon peers. The strip was able to register grown-up emotions, like anxiety, depression, yearning, disillusionment, that had never been in cartoons before. Instead of the Slam! Bam! Pow! sound effects that were the choice of the comics, it employed a quieter, more eloquent vocabulary: Aaugh! and Sigh.
The success of the strip, together with its spinoffs and an almost unending flood of cheesy Peanuts ware — made Schulz an immensely wealthy man, rich enough to build his own ice rink. In the ’80s he was one of the 10 highest-paid entertainers in America, right up there with Oprah and Michael Jackson. In fact, if by artist we mean someone who paints or draws, it’s no stretch at all to say that Charles Schulz was the most popular and most successful American artist who ever lived. He was also one of the loneliest and most unhappy. Peanuts was almost transparently autobiographical. There really was an unattainable Little Red-Haired Girl. Her name was Donna Mae Johnson, and she jilted Schulz in July 1950; he nursed the rejection, along with all the other slights he suffered from wished-for girlfriends, for the rest of his life. Charlie Brown, wishy-washy, disillusioned, but also secretly ambitious, was the artist himself, of course; and so were Linus, the oddball; Schroeder, meticulous and gifted; and, above all, Snoopy, with his daydreams, his fantasies, his sense of being undervalued and misunderstood. Violet, with her mean streak; and Lucy, bossy, impatient and sarcastic, were all the controlling, withholding women in Schulz’s life, especially his mother and his first wife, Joyce. Michaelis also goes in for a certain amount of psychoanalyzing, but once you have the key it hardly seems necessary.
In David Michaelis' Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, the importance of almost goes without saying--Schulz was what so many lesser figures are carelessly said to be: a genuine American icon, who in his unassuming way deeply imprinted our culture. Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it. I read it at a rapid pace because it's so addictive. There is something about his books that bring you in and get you hooked. and I'm loving this one.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(7 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
Customer Comments
koko22 has commented on (1) product.
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis
koko22, October 16, 2007
I just got done reading Tino Georgiou's--The Fates, and contemplated on buying David Michaelis' Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography--boy am I glad I did. Talk about a FUN read. Reviewing a book that was so very much enjoyable is easy; trying to convey its brilliance will be a lil more challenging. The book begins around the end of Charles Schulz's life, (the creator of Peanuts,) duh! What Charles Schulz's did was fine art, while he was just a newspaper cartoonist, a draftsman, whose work would surely not last. I guess we all know how that turned out. In fact, Peanuts is still read, in anthologies and compilations, by many more people than ever looked at Schulz who was arguably the greater talent. He transformed the newspaper cartoon strip, busy and cluttered, by reducing his childish characters to near abstraction — huge circular heads balanced on tiny bodies — he rendered them far more expressive than his cartoon peers. The strip was able to register grown-up emotions, like anxiety, depression, yearning, disillusionment, that had never been in cartoons before. Instead of the Slam! Bam! Pow! sound effects that were the choice of the comics, it employed a quieter, more eloquent vocabulary: Aaugh! and Sigh.The success of the strip, together with its spinoffs and an almost unending flood of cheesy Peanuts ware — made Schulz an immensely wealthy man, rich enough to build his own ice rink. In the ’80s he was one of the 10 highest-paid entertainers in America, right up there with Oprah and Michael Jackson. In fact, if by artist we mean someone who paints or draws, it’s no stretch at all to say that Charles Schulz was the most popular and most successful American artist who ever lived. He was also one of the loneliest and most unhappy. Peanuts was almost transparently autobiographical. There really was an unattainable Little Red-Haired Girl. Her name was Donna Mae Johnson, and she jilted Schulz in July 1950; he nursed the rejection, along with all the other slights he suffered from wished-for girlfriends, for the rest of his life. Charlie Brown, wishy-washy, disillusioned, but also secretly ambitious, was the artist himself, of course; and so were Linus, the oddball; Schroeder, meticulous and gifted; and, above all, Snoopy, with his daydreams, his fantasies, his sense of being undervalued and misunderstood. Violet, with her mean streak; and Lucy, bossy, impatient and sarcastic, were all the controlling, withholding women in Schulz’s life, especially his mother and his first wife, Joyce. Michaelis also goes in for a certain amount of psychoanalyzing, but once you have the key it hardly seems necessary.
In David Michaelis' Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography, the importance of almost goes without saying--Schulz was what so many lesser figures are carelessly said to be: a genuine American icon, who in his unassuming way deeply imprinted our culture. Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it. I read it at a rapid pace because it's so addictive. There is something about his books that bring you in and get you hooked. and I'm loving this one.
(7 of 14 readers found this comment helpful)