Isegoria

The Wall Street Journal managed to get the extremely reclusive Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, to discuss David Michaelis’s new biography of Charles Schultz and The Grief That Made ‘Peanuts’ Good:

At that time, most of the strip went over my head, and I certainly had no understanding of how revolutionary “Peanuts” was or how it was changing the comics. “Peanuts” pretty much defines the modern comic strip, so even now it’s hard to see it with fresh eyes. The clean, minimalist drawings, the sarcastic humor, the unflinching emotional honesty, the inner thoughts of a household pet, the serious treatment of children, the wild fantasies, the merchandising on an enormous scale — in countless ways, Schulz blazed the wide trail that most every cartoonist since has tried to follow. David Michaelis’s biography, “Schulz and Peanuts,” is an earnest and penetrating look at the man behind this comic-strip phenomenon. With new access to Schulz’s personal files, professional archives and family, Mr. Michaelis presents the fullest picture we have yet of the cartoonist’s life and personality.

Schultz was, apparently, a tortured artist:

Born in 1922, Schulz always held his parents in high regard, but they were emotionally remote and strangely inattentive to their only child. Schulz was shy and alienated during his school years, retreating from nearly every opportunity to reveal himself or his gifts. Teachers and students consequently ignored him, and Schulz nursed a lifelong grudge that so few attempted to draw him out or recognized his talent. His mother was bedridden with cancer during his high-school years, and she died long before he could prove himself to her — a source of endless regret and longing for him. As a young adult, he disguised his hurt and anger with a mild, deflecting demeanor that also masked his great ambition and drive.

Once he finally achieved his childhood dream of drawing a comic strip, however, he was able to expose and confront his inner torments through his creative work, making insecurity, failure and rejection the central themes of his humor. Knowing that his miseries fueled his work, he resisted help or change, apparently preferring professional success over personal happiness. Desperately lonely and sad throughout his life, he saw himself as “a nothing,” yet he was also convinced that his artistic ability made him special. An odd combination of prickly pride and utter self-abnegation characterizes many of his public comments.
[...]
Schulz’s fixation on his work was total, and his private life suffered as a result. Mr. Michaelis uncovers quite a bit of Schulz’s more personal tribulations. Schulz’s strong-willed and industrious first wife, Joyce, grew disgusted with his withdrawal, and she often treated him cruelly. As the marriage finally unraveled, Schulz had an unsuccessful affair, and he later broke up the marriage of the woman who became his second wife. Schulz’s life turned more peaceful after he remarried, but he never overcame the self-doubt and dread that plagued him. Work remained his only refuge. At the end, deteriorating health took away Schulz’s ability to draw the strip, a loss so crushing that it can only be considered merciful that he died, at age 77 in 2000, the very day his last strip was published.

He drew much of his material quite directly from his own life:

We discover, for example, that in the recurring scenes of Lucy annoying Schroeder at the piano, the crabby and bossy Lucy stands in for Joyce, and the obsessive and talented Schroeder is a surrogate for Schulz.

Reading these strips in light of the information Mr. Michaelis unearths, I was struck less by the fact that Schulz drew on his troubled first marriage for material than by the sympathy that he shows for his tormentor and by his ability to poke fun at himself.

Lucy, for all her domineering and insensitivity, is ultimately a tragic, vulnerable figure in her pursuit of Schroeder. Schroeder’s commitment to Beethoven makes her love irrelevant to his life. Schroeder is oblivious not only to her attentions but also to the fact that his musical genius is performed on a child’s toy (not unlike a serious artist drawing a comic strip). Schroeder’s fanaticism is ludicrous, and Lucy’s love is wasted. Schulz illustrates the conflict in his life, not in a self-justifying or vengeful manner but with a larger human understanding that implicates himself in the sad comedy. I think that’s a wonderfully sane way to process a hurtful world. Of course, his readers connected to precisely this emotional depth in the strip, without ever knowing the intimate sources of certain themes. Whatever his failings as a person, Schulz’s cartoons had real heart.

Jose Luis Calva of Mexico City is under arrest after performing some extremely thorough research for his horror novel, Cannibalistic Instincts:

An aspiring horror novelist was arrested after police discovered his girlfriend’s torso in his closet, a leg in the refrigerator and bones in a cereal box, the city prosecutor’s spokesman said Thursday.

He told police he had boiled some of his girlfriend’s flesh but that he hadn’t eaten it — yet.

(A tip of my sombrero to Enrique.)

I’d been meaning to read The Circus of Dr. Lao for a few years now, and with Halloween on the way, I decided to pull it off the shelf and to move it to the top of the reading stack. I must say that it’s quite an unusual book, one that seems well ahead of its time in any number of ways.

A few of the reviews on Amazon ably make the point, like this review from Steven R. Dandois, ostensibly of Zothique:

File under “Apocalyptica Sardonicus”
Reading the other reviews here reminds me of the old saw about the blind men and the elephant — how one (feeling its legs) describes it as resembling a tree; one (feeling its trunk) describes it as like a rope; et cetera. The simple fact is you can’t experience this particular elephant unless you read it for yourself. It is truly sui generis.

As for the negative comments that some have lobbed at this book, I can only laugh bitterly and loudly. For the whole concept of the book is about a small-minded town that’s exposed to an act of real and genunine magic — and how the town misses the point utterly. They’re limited by their blinders, and perceive only that which can be easily categorized within their existing worldviews. Draw what parallels you may….

Be warned that despite its labelmates in the Bison series, this “Circus” has as much in common with William S. Burroughs as Edgar Rice… and psychedelic/anarchist philosopher Robert Anton Wilson owes this slim tome a debt of gratitude. (His “catalog” of characters and ideas at the back of his “Illuminatus! Trilogy” is an obvious homage to the similar catalog appendixed here.)

The “Circus” is luminous and lyrical, shifting gears from rhapsodic flights of fantasy to bitter and insightful jibes at humanity’s foibles. And it’s probably my all-time favorite book, ever. It invites and withstands re-reading after re-reading.

This review by Mark Shanks also hits its mark:

Amazingly bitter, cynical, and sardonic — I loved it!
Finney writes as though he had been possessed by the spirit of Ambrose Bierce, and to me, that’s a good thing. More of a short story than a novel (I last read it in the space of a single afternoon), “The Circus” shines light in many directions and is best appreciated after more than a single reading. Frankly, I’m astonished that it got published in the first place, and even more surprised that it here receives what amounts to a “Criterion Collection” sort of treatment, including reproductions of the illustrations by Boris Artzybasheff from the first edition.

The citizens of Abalone (plus a few visitors) are scathingly protrayed in amazingly understated passages. Presented with actual unicorns, satyrs, sea serpents, mermaids, and other “fabulous” creatures and miracles, hardly any of the townspeople can muster more than a yawn and a shrug. The ultimate spectacle, the sacrifice of a virgin to the giant bronze god of the rotten-to-the-core city of Woldercan, is absolutely a gem.

The use of several racial epithets does nothing to reflect on Finney — it doesn’t take a super-astute reader to understand Finney is reflecting on his characters, yes, even in 1935.

As most reviewers have noted — this is not a children’s book. And while the Tony Randall film of 1960 has some of its own charm (thank you, Barbara Eden!!), it is a kiddy-fied, watered-down version of this story. It was probably Finney’s experience as a newspaperman that soured him on human nature — it must be an occpational hazard, since he shares that experience with the afore-mentioned Bierce as well as with another arch-cynic, Cyril Kornbluth of “Marching Morons” fame. The writing style varies (intentionally) from pulp to inspired to crisp and concise, sometimes all on a single page. Obviously not a book for everyone, but I find it refreshing, enlightening, and supremely entertaining.

The Tony Randall movie, Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, was, despite all the wonderful five-star reviews, almost unwatchable.

I recently mentioned a famous historical anecdote, attributed to the Assassins, that found its way into John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian:

Thulsa Doom: Yes! You know what it is, don’t you boy? Shall I tell you? It’s the least I can do. Steel isn’t strong, boy, flesh is stronger! Look around you. There, on the rocks; a beautiful girl. Come to me, my child…
Thulsa Doom: [coaxes the girl to jump to her death]
Thulsa Doom: That is strength, boy! That is power! What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. Contemplate this on the tree of woe. Crucify him!

Another famous tidbit comes into the movie when the quasi-Mongol leader asks, “Conan, what is good in life?”

Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.

The original quote is, of course, attributable to Genghis Khan:

Conan’s response to the Mongol General is an abbreviation of a real quote attributed to Gengis Khan: “The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”

Conan’s opinion of what is best in life is not all that links him to Genghis Khan. Subotai (or Subedei Baghadur) was also the name of Great Khan’s general. The fact that Conan is not only chased but to some extent orphaned by dogs also recalls Genghis Khan’s well-documented fear of that particular animal. Finally, the writers’ preoccupation with steel seems oddly coincidental, given that Genghis Khan’s birthname, Temujin, is frequently translated as “finest steel.”

The movie isn’t simply a hodgepodge of historical tidbits; it’s also a hodgepodge of Robert E. Howard stories, not all of them Conan stories:

The name “Valeria” comes from the heroine of the novella “Red Nails.” The theft of the tower in Zamora is from “The Tower of the Elephant.” The speech King Osric gives about the throne room becoming a prison echoes a similar passage in “The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune,” a King Kull story. The scene where Conan is crucified and kills a vulture with his teeth is from “A Witch Shall Be Born.” Finally, the scene where Valeria vows to come back from the dead to save Conan and then does so is from “Queen of the Black Coast.”

In fact, the antagonist of the movie, Thulsa Doom, is King Kull’s arch nemesis, not Conan’s — and his film version has its own origin:

Thulsa Doom and his warriors are patterned after the Teutonic knights from Alexander Nevsky. The similarities between the two are very striking. From the helmets, body armor, weapons and mannerisms. Thulsa Doom’s even has the same pageboy haircut has the Teutonic Knight’s commander. Milius even went on to use the same Prokiev score for the work prints and pre-release trailers while Poledouris’s score was still being worked on.

The more you look, the more homages you find:

The scene in which Conan is covered with the cryptic writings of the wizard (Mako) to protect him from evil spirits is an adaptation of a chapter of Kwaidan titled “Hoichi the Earless”. In this chapter, a priest covers Hoichi with Japanese characters, writing out a holy Buddhist text on his body to protect him from the spirits of the dead come to claim Hoichi’s life.

As A Critical Appreciation of Conan the Barbarian points out, the film draws its themes from Nietzsche.

The Secret Origins of the Fantastic Four can be found in the popularity of the Justice League — but also in the Doc Savage pulps:

Doc Savage’s crew consisted of his Fabulous Five — Johnny, Monk, Ham, Renny, and Long Tom — and, later, his (female) cousin Pat. Combining some of these characters and adding superpowers yields the Fantastic Four:

DR. REED RICHARDS is based on DR. CLARK SAVAGE aka Doc Savage. Reed is a brilliant inventor and scientist just like Doc. Reed’s habit of constantly using big words comes from Johnny Littlejohn.

BEN GRIMM is based on MONK MAYFAIR. Ben is a “Thing”; Monk resembles a gorilla. Ben’s running feud with Johnny is based on Monk’s squabble with Ham. Like Renny, who was described as “thin and GRIM,” Ben also loves to slam his huge fists through doors — or anything else.

SUSAN STORM is based on PAT SAVAGE, the unofficial sixth member of Doc’s team. The beautiful and glamorous Pat is Doc’s cousin; Susan is Johnny Storm’s sister.

JOHNNY STORM is based on JOHNNY LITTLEJOHN. Johnny gets his name from Littlejohn. Moreover, it was said that “underneath Littlejohn’s gaunt appearance burns a strength and fire unbelievable.”