DAVID MICHAELIS’ SCHULZ AND PEANUTS: A BIOGRAPHY GOOD GRIEF!

RATING GUIDE:

 

5 – A keeper!   

4 – Very good

3 –  Passable

2 –  I’d rather read a telephone book

1 – An absolute bomb.  Read at your own risk!

 

Like millions of people, I love Snoopy and the Peanuts gang.  This was the reason I bought a copy of David Michaelis’ Schulz and Peanuts:  A Biography, a very hefty and very long biography of Charles Schulz, who brought us the Peanuts comic strips for fifty years, until about a year before his death in 2000. 

Michaelis’ biography of Charles Schulz is a little controversial.  Apparently, his biography angered the late Schulz’ family, given the way he portrayed the late illustrator in the book.  And once I read it, I realized why it ticked off Schulz’ family, as well as many of his fans.

A Snoopy/Peanuts fan would definitely appreciate Michaelis’ biography for revealing many interesting tidbits about the origins of the characters in the Peanuts comic strips.  He tells us about the people who were the inspiration for Schulz’ characters, like Charlie Brown, Lucy, the Little Red-Haired Girl (yes, she does/did exist!).  We also learn the origins of  Snoopy, who’s probably the most famous and beloved dog in the world (except for Lassie, I suppose).  Of course, we learn about how Schulz’ accidental foray into drawing cartoons led to him being the world’s most famous (and also richest) cartoonist of his time. 

But Michaelis also presents the reader with some surprising (really unexpected) and quite shocking details about Schulz’ life.  While Schulz appeared to have been the poster boy for success, the man who lived the American dream, it appears that Schulz was actually a pretty unhappy man while he lived.  A man who was so unhappy that he actually had an extra-marital affair with a much-younger woman while he was in his forties.

To use Charlie Brown’s favorite expression, GOOD GRIEF!

No wonder Schulz’ family was pissed.

I have to admit that reading about that was a little surprising.  Then again, it really shouldn’t have.  In this day and age, I think we have a tendency to go into black-and-white thinking, especially when it comes to personalities, people in the public eye.  We either glorify them needlessly, or we demonize them, which is just unfair.  Every person, famous or not, has his or her own strengths and weaknesses.  Even a man as wonderful as Charles Schulz.

Michaelis paints Schulz as a very lonely (quite depressed) man in life, which many people might disagree with.  But if Michaelis was correct in his portrayal of Schulz, then it just goes to show that Schulz was an artist whose character was more complex than the fairly straightforward line drawings he made.  Like many artists, he also led a tortured inner life.  But in my opinion, reading about that didn’t make Schulz any less of a person or an artist.  It made him a little more human, a little more fallible, a little more of an ordinary man in my eyes.  Though it saddened me to read about Schulz leading a lonely life (you’ll have to read the book to know what probably caused that), it also made me happy to read about a man who didn’t allow his personal demons to stop him from creating magic for millions of people.  You don’t need to be perfect to make millions of people happy.  You don’t need to be perfect to create a masterpiece.  Charles Schulz was an imperfect, ordinary man, but his legacy endures.  And THAT’s the story of his life. 

RATING:  4