Charles Monroe Schulz
Arriva Charlie Brown!

LA RECENSIONE

It was 1950 and I wasn't born yet, but that's not a problem (if anything, it will become one later, I mean now for the crowd that will rush to read my review).

I absolutely wanted to review Charles Monroe Schulz, the creator of Charlie Brown, and his Peanuts; I dug deep into my library and resurrected the first edition (June 1963) of GOOD OL' CHARLIE BROWN, translated as HERE COMES CHARLIE BROWN! (Milano Libri Edizioni)

... Orange cover with a CB (stands for Charlie Brown: can I continue with the abbreviation even though his mom will always call him by his full name?), he looks as he did in the early years: rounder than ever, with a big head and a fringe similar to a hieroglyph!

He's a wonderful child, though... he's too naive, incapable, and surrounded by little women growing up (actually little witches growing up!), but he doesn’t mind and he relentlessly pursues the sole purpose of his life: to gain popularity, become a reference point for his small congregation of friends... And he will be destined for... cosmic failure!

This little adult child is now a 60-year-old man, because... Charlie, blow out your sixty candles along with Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, PigPen, Patty, and all the others who were born from the magical pencil of Schulz.

Oops, I got distracted and started writing: the truth is, I've discovered to my great "dismay" and I'd say with some "irritation" that there's already a review, so what? How to proceed? Well, this, in fact, is not a review (I told myself), it's just a birthday wish to the tenderest, most insecure, pure-hearted, and, let’s face it, least clever child that comics have ever narrated: he's the son every parent would be scared to have!

It's not a review, it's perhaps a reinterpretation of the same book, the same stories (which are universal stories), the same neuroses of yesterday (not different from today's), the human weaknesses that haven't changed (even though 60 years have passed!); surely the life of these children, their days don't change, framed by daily chats, baseball, and the quest for... Normality.

Of these "Peanuts"(Schulz never liked this name, he was forced into its use by the Editors) Charlie is the most famous and perhaps the leader, but what about Lucy (argumentative and irritating)... and Linus (prey to a thousand neuroses, using his blanket for his mental safety)... and Snoopy (born a dog, but more human than humans)... and PigPen (monstrously dirty, he has the "dust of the millennia on him")... and Schroeder (a small genius pianist escaping from what surrounds him, but especially from Lucy)... and all the others, who are there every morning waiting for the School Bus...

No descriptions can keep pace with Schulz's pencil and strips, this "poet" (as Eco called him in 1963) who wrote pages of normal life, dealing with ordinary topics through the words, writings, feelings of EXTRAORDINARY children!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PEANUTS! Best Wishes!