As the readers of this blog know, I get a regular email feed from delanceyplace.
The mail today is about Charlie Brown, an endearing cartoon character from “Peanuts” by Charles Schulz.
I quote –
“Children are not supposed to be radically dissatisfied. When they are unhappy, children protest–they wail, they whine, they scream, they cry–then they move on. Schulz gave these children lifelong
dissatisfactions, the stuff of which adulthood is made.
“Readers recognized themselves in ‘poor, moon- faced, unloved, misunderstood’ Charlie Brown–in his dignity in the face of whole seasons of doomed baseball games, his endurance and stoicism in the face of insults. He … reminded people, as no other cartoon character had, of what it was to be
vulnerable, to be small and alone in the universe, to be human–both little and big at the same time.”
David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts,
Harper Collins, Copyright 2007 by David Michaelis, pp. 245- 247.
Now this is about the most poignant way to describe what in the heart of hearts I knew to be true. To be human — both little and big at the same time. David Michaelis has truly done a great job of writing about the author and his creation and the message that was being sent to the readers.
This is why I think that those comic strips always were favorites and I look for them everywhere. I also suspect that these cartoons have a larger adult audience than a children one.
What do you think?