Like everything else, books and literature are subject to trends, fads, and changing times. Books can soar up the bestseller lists and by the time you read them, you may wonder why. Future generations will read The Da Vinci Code and wonder about us, you can believe that. Other books become dated by their subject matter and are left behind by historical events and changing social mores.
A book that was a bestseller in its day but is now something of a curiosity is The Gospel according to Peanuts, which had sold over ten million copies since it was published in 1965. Booksellers are still selling it. I remember taking it off the shelf at my school but finding too much Gospel and not nearly enough Peanuts. Spotting it in a second-hand bookstore some time ago, I picked it up. My initial reaction was still the same, but I bought it anyway.
It’s not the silly idea that it may first appear. Charles M Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, was a devoted Christian who put Christian messages into his cartoons. This was not a constant in his work, nor particularly heavy-handed, but certainly present. Robert L Short, a Presbyterian theologian, used some of these cartoons to illustrate his book, showing Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and the others as avatars for adults grappling with an unfriendly world.
The book is very much of its time. It’s not talking down to its audience at all though, which can often be the mistake of popularisers of any ilk. One can image Short doing this book as a series of lectures with the cartoons on slides. His aim is to make the message of Christianity accessible and he does this very well. Perhaps he is preaching to the converted but then who doesn’t?
Incidentally, if you are a Peanuts fan, you might want to read Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography by David Michaelis (2007). I found it good, and the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson, feels the same. Others say it is inaccurate (Michaelis stands by his work) and tries too hard to find explanations in Schulz’ life for his art. I recommend it though.
The other books I read recently that have been left behind by time were two of Herge’s Tintin books, Tintin in the land of the Soviets, and Tintin in the Congo. The Tintin books have all now been published in eight volumes, hardcover books each with up to four stories. This is Volume 1. I was never a huge fan of Tintin, although he has a big following, though I did read him occasionally. He has never been that popular in the US, which hasn’t stopped Steven Spielberg making a film coming to cinema near you!
Fans of Tintin may not recognize the first of these books, not just because of its relative obscurity. It is the first of Tintin’s adventures and looks very different to its successors. It is in black and white, and the drawing crude, particularly compared to what came after. Tin is a taller, more solid character, although Snowy is already Snowy. None of the other regular cast, Captain Haddock, Thomson and Thompson, appear. The plotting is also crude. Trapped in a basement cell next to a river, Tinin finds a diving suit in the cell. No, really. It is a piece of anti-Soviet propaganda with Tintin uncovering fake factories and the underground vaults where Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin keep all the food and wealth they are stealing from the people, while the GDU try to capture, kill or convert him. Herge later disavowed the work, saying it was youthful folly.
Folly it may have been, but oddly accurate. Anyone who can spot the moral difference between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany deserves a Nobel Prize in Hair Splitting – and that would be ill-deserved. Lenin introduced the use of terror as a means of control. The leaders deliberately starved their people. Enemies of the State disappeared, and were tortured and killed at an impressive rate. I would not recommend this book as an accurate picture of the Soviet State but its broad brushstrokes somehow manage to reveal some detail.
The second book, in colour with Herge’s characteristic precise and detailed art, now has the reputation of being racist. It is. The Congolese are depicted with big red lips and big white eyes, childish and needing the wisdom that Tintin and Belgium can bring them (Had Herge read Heart of Darkness? Not by this stage.) . On the other hand the villains are a duo of white gangster and black witchdoctor– so that’s nice. Tintin also shoots a rhino, an elephant (taking home its tusks in triumph) as well as, hilariously, fifteen antelopes when he thinks he keeps shooting and missing the one. And this is the version that Herge had adjusted in response to reader reactions.
The book now comes with a disclaimer that it is a product of its time. And so it is. Calls to ban the book are misguided. I would not buy this book for a child but with 21 (or 22 depending on how far you want to go) other stories, I don’t think the child would miss it. And by the time he or she picks it up on his own, they can work it out for themselves, or talk to you about it. That’s the whole point of teaching them to read, isn’t it?
Interesting you raise this point about what's suitable reading/consumption for youngsters as well as the opportunity to talk about it. We found the school bus talk during primary school a particular source for dinner table family conversation, but we didn't consider banning the kids from the bus (for more than this reason, of course). Recently, a school board in the US wanted to ban a production of an August Wilson play because it used 'the "n" word' as it was referred to in the flurry of social network conversations about the issue. The show finally went on but not before someone had written (as you do above) that the whole point is to create discourse and, hopefully, some enlightenment along the way. Here's Howard Sherman's open letter to the Waterbury School Board. http://americantheatrewing.org/blog/2011/01/19/to-the-waterbury-board-of-education/
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