bashbashbashbash's review against another edition
3.0
I read this nearly a decade ago, long enough in the past that much of what I know of Schulz now seems like given knowledge rather than carefully constructed biography. But of course it comes mainly or all from this biography.
My one major complaint is Ficowski's choice to exclude any information about Schulz's sexual proclivities. Schulz strikes me as a masochist (based on his drawings), and not unlike John Cowper Powys in both his potentially "unusual" proclivities – as suggested by his epistolary love affairs, which seemed to wither the moment he met a woman in the flesh. I also wonder whether like Powys, Schulz didn't really mind his own odd sexuality – that he found it perfectly fine, if sometimes lonely. The difference, of course, is that Powys recorded his sexual desires and thoughts in detail, whereas Schulz was murdered before he had a chance to even attempt such a thing.
So yes, this is an excellent biography, but it seemed always to be treading carefully around a feature of Schulz's life that there's no need to hide.
My one major complaint is Ficowski's choice to exclude any information about Schulz's sexual proclivities. Schulz strikes me as a masochist (based on his drawings), and not unlike John Cowper Powys in both his potentially "unusual" proclivities – as suggested by his epistolary love affairs, which seemed to wither the moment he met a woman in the flesh. I also wonder whether like Powys, Schulz didn't really mind his own odd sexuality – that he found it perfectly fine, if sometimes lonely. The difference, of course, is that Powys recorded his sexual desires and thoughts in detail, whereas Schulz was murdered before he had a chance to even attempt such a thing.
So yes, this is an excellent biography, but it seemed always to be treading carefully around a feature of Schulz's life that there's no need to hide.
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