Product Description

Charles Schulz, the most widely syndicated and beloved cartoonist of all time, is also one of the most misunderstood figures in popular culture. Now, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis gives us the first full-length biography of Schulz: at once a creation story, a portrait of a hidden genius, and a chronicle contrasting the private man with the central role he played in shaping the imagination of a generation and beyond. The son of a barber, Schulz was born in Minnesota to modest, working class roots.In 1943, just three days after his mother's tragic death from cancer, Schulz, a private in the army, shipped out for boot camp and the war in Europe. The sense of shock and separation never left him. And these early experiences would shape his entire life. With "Peanuts", Schulz embedded adult ideas in a world of small children to remind the reader that character flaws and childhood wounds are with us always. It was the central truth of his own life, that as the adults we've become and as the children we always will be, we can free ourselves, if only we can see the humor in the predicaments of funny-looking kids. Schulz's "Peanuts" profoundly influenced popular culture in the second half of the 20th century. But the strip was anchored in the collective experience and hardships of Schulz's generation-the generation that survived the Great Depression and liberated Europe and the Pacific and came home to build the postwar world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98624 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Review
'... exemplary .... rich, honest, humane and warmed by unfakeable admiration for the work.' --The Sunday Times

Much of the book, particularly Schulz s pre-Peanuts life in Minnesota, is quite insightful and moving, a portrait of admirable American values, of self-sufficiency, discipline and hard work. The choice of cartoons is excellent. --The Sunday Telegraph

'One of the great coups of Michaelis s biography is the deftness with which he crosscuts between Schulz s life and work ... exemplary .... rich, honest, humane and warmed by unfakeable admiration for the work.' --The Sunday Times

Customer Reviews

A Sadly Narrow Portrait of the Artist
For those of us who knew him, even if only in passing, this book is a big disappointment. Pretending to write a "warts and all" account - which would be welcome - Michaelis foregrounds Schulz' emotional conflicts, but does so without giving us a rounded portrait of the man. At times it is almost voyeuristic, devoting well over a hundred pages to the breakdown' of Schulz' first marriage without telling us anything new after the first ten; the second, very satisfying marriage gets little more than a factual account. More importantly, there is nothing to explain how Schulz took his anxieties and conflicts and translated them into such engaging and enduring humor. There is the pro forma suggestion that pain gives birth to art, but most of the discussion of the work is, sometimes infuriatingly, limited to the obvious, or to explications of how it illustrated the conflicts in his daily life. The author often embellishes on material to make it fit his "thesis," exposing the fact that the book is a "reading" of Charles Schulz' life, and a rather hackneyed and even gossipy one at that. Schulz,Peanuts and their serious admirers will have to wait for a real plumbing of the depths of the man who created Charlie Brown and the world they inhabited.

Reflections of Charles M. (Sparky) Schulz Based on Peanuts Panels
Did you ever sit in one of those old-time barber shops (like the one Mr. Schulz's dad ran)? To make it easier for you to see how the hair cut was going, there were mirrors everywhere. If you looked to the left and the right, the mirrors would multiply the images so you would see hundreds of yourself.

I was reminded of that optical illusion while reading Schulz and Peanuts. When a person pens as many comic strips as Sparky Schulz did, it's inevitable that much of is in the strips will come from his life . . . and enter into his life. Author David Michaelis clearly reflected on that point and did his best to tie his book's reporting of the Schulz life to the Schulz strips. As a result, the book is literally brimming with strips and the text connects the strips back to the Schulz life or family. Seeing those strips and getting more insight into how the strips connected to the man and his family was certainly interesting. That's the strength of the book.

The weakness of the book is that this focus puts a great deal else about Mr. Schulz's life into a dark background from which little emerges. As a result, this is as flawed and incomplete a biography as you could have while having vast access to so many people and so much material.

I found the first half of the book to be much more interesting than the second half. In the book's beginning, you learn about how Mr. Schulz became a cartoonist, established Peanuts, and the inspiration behind many of the characters and situations. You also find a good description of Mr. Schulz's Christian faith. From there, the story bogs down into too much speculating about Mr. Schulz's psychology and his relationship with his first wife, Joyce. You'll also learn vastly more than you ever wanted to know about the commercial success of the Peanuts empire (after all, you probably lived through it) and various building projects by Mrs. Schulz.

Having seen this book, I think a better concept for Mr. Michaelis would have been to have written a history of the Peanuts strip and how Mr. Schulz developed the strip. The author's writing and analytical abilities didn't seem to be up to much more than that . . . while missing elements that would have been included if the scope had been narrower (such as a discussion of more of the characters and their origins).

If you don't want to get bogged down, feel free to stop reading at page 286. You'll probably like the book better if you do.

Charles Schulz was a Very Human Genius
If you do some reading around the web, you'll find that Charles Schulz's family and inner circle are not at all pleased with this book. His son, Monte, cites numerous inaccuracies and believes that Mr. Michaelis went into this work with an agenda. Apparently, that agenda, Monte believes, was to make Schulz out to be a depressed, unloving SOB.

With all due respect to Sparky's loved ones, because of course they would know best, I didn't get that feeling from this book at all. I found a portrait of an interesting, funny, well-rounded man. Schulz and Peanuts is by no means a love letter to Sparky, but I didn't find it to be a hatchet job, either. Among the references to Sparky's agoraphobia and first marriage, are discussions of his enjoyment with seeing the kids in his studio after school, and his love for them. I found a man who was at times reserved, but not cold.

There are complaints from the family about how Schulz's first marriage is discussed. What I found interesting about this is not that the marriage ended, but how it lasted so long. These two people, each special in their own way, were tragically mismatched. This is not a terribly unusual occurrence, if we're being honest. Each of them found happiness in their second try, and that's a blessing.

I have now, based on the feedback I've gotten from other readers, learned that I need to take Schulz and Peanuts with several grains of salt; I am generally pleased with the man I came to know through its pages, however. Good, generous, interesting and gifted - that's not such a bad legacy to leave behind, is it?

One thing I found fascinating was Michaelis' use of Peanuts strips in order to show what was going on in Sparky's own life. Reading those strips from the beginning might be the best biography of all.