I read Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree for the first time today to my four year old daughter today and man what a bummer that book is. It starts off depressing and just gets worse. It's got the same bleak, Schopenhauerian melancholy as the suicide-inducing Charles Schulz and his allegedly funny Peanuts strip. But I didn't really want to talk about the book itself so much as the author photograph right there on the back cover. Good God that's an intimidating author pic for a children's book. Now I know the author photographs on my books aren't exactly heart warming, but you really have to strike a balance between insane (Patricia Cornwell next to her helicopter) and elusive (Michael Faber walking in a field in the snow with his back to the camera). The late Shel Silverstein's pic strikes no balance. It is not good, although it didn't apparently hurt his sales....
Anyhoo I was telling my older daughter about the Shel Silverstein author photograph and how freaky it was and she delightedly informed me that in Diary of a Wimpy Kid there's a whole riff about that author pic and there's even a scary drawing of the pic done by the Wimpy Kid himself. The Wimpy Kid's father repeatedly threatens him with the promise that if he doesn't "brush his teeth Shel Silverstein from The Giving Tree will get him" which is pretty funny stuff.
76 comments:
Please tell me you didn't mean what you said about Charles Schulz? I honestly think he is one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. They should be studying him at Oxford- forget Descartes. How can anyone not love Snoopy or Charlie Brown? Schulz is my all time favourite American way ahead of Bob Dylan.
Anyway I'll let you move on with your intended topic. Sorry.
That post is too funny, and that is one scary photo. My son is a big fan of the "Wimpy Kid", so I'll have to check out his collection. Reading to your kids is one of the best gifts you can give them. Takes a lot to scare mine now, as they love Tales From Darkside & Crypt, Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and most of Stephen King's adaptions. In fact we just had a great time watching the SK marathon that has been on. IT is a particular favorite.
Yeah, I've noticed that photo before. Our children's buyer hates that book, but it seems to be too late to reverse it's "classic" status.
That's Shel Silverstein?!? Yikes!! I love his poems, and want to add some of his collections to my book shelf soon. I'm thinking maybe he should read of few of the funnier ones and then take the picture.
Man, I have often seen that photo on books and remarked that it seems calculated to scare the hell out of children. Guy looks like an escaped killer.
Books other than the one on which this mug shot appears soften the look somewhat.
I'm not up on my Schopenhauer, but Peanuts could be bleak, couldn't it? Charlie Brown's world is an endless cycle of mediocrity, petty cruelty (Lucy), obsession (Schroeder), frustrated infantility (Linus) and failure from which, unlike the Hindu life cycle, there is no chance of escaping to nirvana or even a better next life. The plush Snoopy toys are cute, though.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Frankie
Oh I agree he's a philosopher all right but his philosophy is profoundly bleak. Charlie Brown NEVER gets to kick the football in Schulz's world and he doesnt come to terms with that or anything, he's just sad and unhappy every time. I do not find it funny when Lucy takes the football away, just gut wrenching.
Sean
Check out the drawing the wimpy kid does of the photograph. Hilarious.
Seana
Your children's buyer has a lot of sense. Its a VERY depressing book.
Glenna
well its too late now for the late MR S.
Peter
And dont forget humiliation. Charlie Brown and Linus are always being humiliated for their beliefs and appearance. The only one with any joi de vivre is the dog who rejects this world completely for a fantasy life - a fantasy of WW1, which historians tell us was a largely meaningless conflict full of senseless slaughter.
He looks like a bald version of Popeye's nemesis, Bluto. And as for Wimpy Kid, my boy loves the books so much he reads them to me, rather than the other way around. Shame about the film, though. It was right up there with Hotel for Dogs as a complete waste of 90 minutes.
Adrian, well shoot, I knew that.
David
Thats good to know about the film. I was going to get it from iTunes but I wont now.
Glenna
Strange that his estate hasnt changed the photo either. There must be a better shot somewhere.
I think it's completely weird that that shot ever made it to the light of day in the first place. Who in their right minds would put that on the back of a children's book?
I guess it hasn't hurt sales any, though. I wonder if author photos ever matter to any significant degree.
I know that writers often complain about how little say they have on the cover design, but in compensation they seem to have free reign in how they present themselves.
I just thought of a small business I could run, in which authors presented their photos for the book to me. It would be called "Actually? No."
I'd run it in conjunction with my highly thought out seminar on what not to do when you make a cold call on a bookstore(First rule--be nice to the floor staff),and my still incubating workshop on how not to waste time and postage sending unsolicited materials to stores when your book isn't really even available to them except by extraordinary means.
By the way, Labor Day was my goal to sell a hundred copies of Fifty Grand. I fell a little short. Still, 97 isn't too shabby.
My next goal was to sell a few copies of Jonathan Franzen's new book, but my services are apparently not required.
Adrian,
Just because I snored through most of DOAWK doesn't mean the kids won't like it. The books make me laugh, so perhaps I expected more from the film.
Adrian, don't forget Pigpen, who had a resaonably sane attitude, I think. So, in Peanuts' world, you want to be the dirty guy, or the dog.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Sorry, guys, but who you really want to be is Lucy.
And don't forget unrequited love (Lucy for Schroeder). As a matter of fact, maybe that's the one thing that saves Peanuts from sending readers to their medicine cabinets by the millions. In Peanuts, even the cruel and the vain are themselves thwarted and stunted.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Seana, Lucy should have been played in a movie by Joan Crawford.
I know the topic is not head-clutching (though I can see Silverstein head-clutching in my mind's eye) but a friend recently sent me a couple of pictures of head-clutching philosophers. There's a link to one in my post "Were Wittgenstein's antics catching?", and I'll put the other up soon. Not as scary as Silverstein, but then kids are young, kids are tough, they can take it!
Peter, no, I don't think so. She's not motivated by an evil impulse, but by a mechanical one.Charlie Brown wants to kick the football, her whole reason for being is to deprive him of this pleasure. Who is going to stop first? No one. Essentially, they are in hell. He just knows it more than she does.
Sorry to double post, but here's something a bit weird. I was just checking my email and saw a message that looked a bit dubious, but I decided to click through anyway. It said Happy Labor Day! and was from Saint Lucy West Blvd, Port St. Lucie, Florida.
Okay, okay--maybe she's not in hell after all...
mrwnrvkovnuxcpvlrzbpy. [url=http://www.acnetreatment2k.com/]acne treatment[/url]
hrvlsv
Jonathan Franzen is good on Peanuts in The Discomfort Zone.
On another topic altogether, can we expect a blog on the new PM?
Not yet being an Australian Citizen, I couldn't vote but being ginger and Welsh my support for Gillard was almost the default option
Lucy lacks free will, does she?
The Discomfort Zone was very good; Freedom is, well, complicated, as I expect it should be.
Peter, I suppose in her little cartoon mind she thinks she has volition, but like the rest of us, this is largely an illusion.
Seana
Thanks for selling all those books! I'm sure the enthusiasm from the Macmillian Rep helped quite a bit though.
Lucy and CB are definitely in some kind of repeating loop in hell or if they're lucky purgatory.
Seana
Yes that was sarcasm.
david
I'm just glad we didnt go see it at the cinema now.
Peter
I find it hard to like Lucy even for her thwarted romantic attachments. She grows up to become Sarah Palin I think.
Mark
At some point I'll have to blog my Ronald Dworkin nose bleed story. Like The Giant Rat of Sumatra, however, the time is not yet ripe.
Sorry, I had to delete my comment - in true Cam style I posted the wrong link. Here's a link to a review of YOU'RE SHORT, BALD & UGLY CHARLIE BROWN! on the comics journal site. basically a bunch of alt-cartoonists re-captioning Peanuts strips with the filthiest things they could think of. I don't find it funny, but it's a pretty interesting article:
http://www.tcj.com/blog/the-strangest-pictures-i-have-seen-8/
Rob
Well I'll admit I was digging on the drama esp this afternoon but I'm not sure it matters that much who actually becomes the PM - their policies seem virtually identical to me.
Maybe I'll see the PM around Melbourne though, that would be cool.
Cam
Every time I've watched a Charlie Brown Halloween I've always wanted to know what sicko is giving him a rock. It really makes me angry.
Charlie Brown is Charles Schulz.He was shy at school and maybe he had a lot of the insecurities that Chuck has in Peanuts. He also had a cute dog who always loved him so it didn't matter that he didn't get to kick the ball. There's always someone who doesn't get to kick the ball in life or has more hair than you or gets valentines cards and so on..But he had Snoopy.
Adrian, I look forward to the Ronald Dworkin nose-bleed (if not the giant rat).
Frankie,
Snoopy didnt seem that affectionate to me. Most of the time he seemed pretty aloof.
Mark
I also have a non quite as good Isaiah Berlin story.
Rob
I did like the fact that when Oakeshott was telling us who our new Prime Minister was going to be he began with a quote from his favourite movie Highlander (!) and then managed to get that quote wrong. Brilliant.
Yeah, I got the sarcasm. Actually, we have a pretty good MacMillan rep, and she was excited when she learned we had sold twenty copies in hardback last year.But even though realistically, paperbacks are where you're going really start to sell most fiction, they don't ever really seem to care about that. It's odd.
We will keep selling your book of course, but it's funny how you can really see when people's minds have started to focus on fall and school and all that. It happened a bit early this year, or I'm sure I would have hit my goal.
I was totally wrong last night. The character to be would be Snoopy. And I agree, he is more like a cat in his relation to Charlie Brown. He is a very undoglike dog.
I wonder if we're onto something with this notion of the Peanuts gang being caught in an endless loop. All the gloom may have seemed groundbreaking once, but ... well, on one episode of The Simpsons, Bart is watching a Charlie Brown TV special. CB says, Good grief!" and Bart mutters weakly, "Didn't see that once coming, Chuck."
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
This is one of the odder uses for this blog, but while doing the daily search for my boy's school jumper, I found one marked A. McKinty in the entrance area to the music hall.
So if you've been looking for it, it's on a chair next to the shelves where they store the school bags ...
Seana
Of course its probably paranoia but I always think the reps hate me.
Peter
When I was younger I used to enjoy the bleak hopeless pessimism of Peanuts but now I think that life is too short to wallow in that shit.
David
Thank you for that. That will definitely be Arwynns. We'll pick it up today. Now if only we could one of the THREE hats that have gone missing.
This evening at work I edited a story about a new mahzor (Jewish High Holiday prayer book) that includes, among other features, this, from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:
“Each day you awaken could be the last you have.” When you accept that reality, she says, “you take the time that day to grow, to become more who you really are, to reach out to other human beings.”
I wonder how old she was when she stopped reading Peanuts.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Well, I can't speak for the whole pack of them, but our rep doesn't hate you. On the other hand, it might have been nice if she had pitched 50G to our main buyer rather than leaving it to me. I do think they shouldn't be so slavish in selling just what comes up as hot at their sales conference.
I always enjoyed "The Giving Tree" as a kid on account of it's promotion of selflessness. It invoked a correlation to my parents. It was only later that I learned Shel Silverstein was not only A) not a woman, but B) looks like Mr. T and C) wrote "A Boy Named Sue" for Johnny Cash.
He also wrote "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" for the immortal Dr. Hool and his Travelling Medicine Show, I think.
Selflessness isn't the best message for girls, I'm thinking. I mean, not until you've at least gotten through, uh, grad school.
I should, say, though, that "A Boy Named Sue" remains a fond memory of childhood.
Seana
I got the Blair book today. So I'll report in soon.
The Pants
Yeah me not so much. The tree needs to be more like the Ents from Lord of the Rings and stay the hell away from people.
Peter
So Shel was a multi talented guy. You'd think Johnny Cash - a man who knew a thing or two about cultivating an image - would have told him about the author pic.
I'd never thought much about Johnny Cash and his image, but he never did seem to do much to clear up any mistaken belief that he had ever spent time in prison, did he? ==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
the giving tree is a good story and to me schulz is always sad.
speaking of wacky children stories, did you watch christopher walken as the puss as in puss in boots on video? ... and gene wilder as the fox (was he??) in the little prince? they both freaked me out - the shock values were way above the (why orange?) oompa loompas. i really don't look forward to them coming to get me tonight...
*sigh* another term of labo(u)r government - wish there're more sincerity in the current leadership to show in the next few months ...
I'm just not getting past the Peanuts thing so im afraid im going to have to sell all your books back on Amazon..they can no longer sit next to my collection of Snoopy books on the shelf, it just wouldn't be right..tee hee
red bike
I LIKED Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka though. So much preferred him to Johnny Depp.
Frankie
Maybe we can agree to disagree. You find him uplifting and cheerful. I find him mournfully sad. Its just one of those things.
Well alright then I wont sell your books I'll just put them next to the Sophie Kinsella.. that's punishment enough.
I look forward to the Blair report.
John McFetridge did an interesting take on cover photos over at Do Some Damage, which mentions this post, for those who haven't seen it.
Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4149/4977629787_c789a2eb70_m.jpg
Andrew! Hey you ya doing?
Yeah what happened to that kid? So full of innocence and hope...
Bizarrely though my hair hasnt really changed at all. I let it grow over the summer and within five weeks it was absolutely ridiculous.
Skeptical is actually the word that comes to mind, so maybe nothing has changed at all.
I love Mr. Silverstein's work, but I honestly believe that Shel was having a laugh on all of us by passing this off as a kid's book.
Some believe it's a charming and uplifting tale of devotion and unconditional love. Then there are people like me who get to the last page, read the words "And the tree was happy," see the illustration of the sad old man, and rightly surmise that the tree is no longer a tree, but a stump.
Shel never hid his feelings about the world around him in his writing. Thus, his children's books tend to be commentaries on the adults around him. I read this one as a cautionary tale of co-dependence.
Also, his books of poetry are worth a look.
Keep the book and photo of Silverstein away from the kids--and the adults, too. How horrifying!
Children could be scarred forever.
On Peanuts, my sister and I loved those books. When I was in high school, we had the Peanuts sweatshirt of one of the characters saying, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand." It was good during a period of teenage cynicism; luckily, we moved on.
Lucy definitely had a mean streak. She wasn't a favorite character, but she was still funny in her own way.
Lucy growing up to be Sarah Palin is hilarious. Maybe Margaret Thatcher. Then she could take the footballs away from everyone.
Hi Adrian. Michel Faber here (not Michael). I can explain that photo. But first I need to see if this message can get through, since I'm not a member of any of those googlybloggery groups that you list as the available 'identity' options. Here goes...
Michel
I am very keen to hear about the M Faber back to the camera/snow in a field picture. Pleaes tell me more.
Michel Faber here again. (Ex-resident of St Kilda, by the way...) I wrote fiction for twenty years before I started trying -- not very hard -- to get published, so the success of 'The Crimson Petal and the White' was not something I'd exactly been courting. When it happened, it was a nice surprise (opportunities for travel, meeting nice people who care about books) but quite stressful and exhausting as well. I'm used to a lot of privacy & uninterrupted headspace, and the demands of publicity drove me off the deep end after a while. I also saw aspects of the literary scene that I'd rather not known about (authors whom I'd admired throwing tantrums or being crass or petty, cynical media people, etc). Also, the Iraq & Afghanistan wars were getting underway and I'd been doing a lot of anti-war journalism. However it was painfully clear that the people who have the real power to decide what happens in this world don't give a shit about what authors think. Art is impotent. I got to the point where I would feel revulsion and anger every time some famous author blabbered on about the transformative power of literature, the paramount importance of art, blah blah blah, when I could see that it made zero difference. So, in the end, totally burned out, I decided to get off the treadmill and disappear. Just say no to all invitations, all commissions. Walk away. And, because one of my prime irritations had been photo shoots, I decided it would be appropriate to offer an author shot that summed up where I was at. A tall Dutch-Australian guy, drably dressed, wandering off into the snow of his Scottish highlands landscape. That was honest. That was five years ago. I'm over my sulk now. Thanks for listening.
Michel
Well I have to say I it works for me. About two months ago I was at a critical point in deciding whether to buy The Crimson Petal And The White or not. It had been recommended to me by various people over the years and because everyone had said that "I would love it" naturally I resisted buying it or even picking it up.
But eventually you get to the Mallarme Point when "la chair est triste et j'ai lu tous les livres," and I was Readings bookshop in St Kilda thinking again about the Crimson Petal. I found the book on the shelf. Oh Jesus, I thought it's bloody enormous and it looks as if its about prostitutes, I really dont fancy this, but then of course I flipped to the author photo and I just burst out laughing. This guy is my new hero I said to my better half, bought the book and - of course - loved it like everyone said I would.
I should probably leave you guys to exchange writerly battle scars, but I'm glad to have The Crimson Petal and the White brought to my attention again, as I didn't get to it on the first wave. And I'm glad you're over some of your feelings of estrangement, Michel.
I will probably be seeing Jonathan Franzen after the next three months are over, and I bet he will be feeling very similar things.
If you want to see parts of the literary scene you'd rather not know about, work in a bookstore.
I don't think art transforms power structures--I think its effect is more internal and individual. It might help you cope with living in a power structure, for instance.
Post a Comment