If you've been a reader of my blog from the beginning, you probably know I'm a huge Muppet fan. And if you're a new reader, well, first of all welcome and secondly, you should know that I'm a HUGE Muppet fan. I can't explain why other than they are something that resonated with me in childhood and I've loved them ever since. The creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson, is one of my all time idols, heroes, what have you. And I cannot believe he's been gone from this world for 24 years.
Last year, a book was released that was the most comprehensive biography ever written on Jim Henson's life. It is simply called Jim Henson: The Biography. I knew this would be a must read for me and it went on my birthday list last year. My sweet mother-in-law is a librarian and is always happy to purchase books as gifts, so this was one of my gifts from them. And then a week after my birthday Oliver was born and my days of leisurely reading were interrupted for a bit!
I finally settled in to start reading the book sometime in January before I returned to work and well, it took me until this week to finish it. Yes it took me seven months to read it. There were several reasons for this and not all of them are because of Oliver! It's a rather long, detailed account of his life. When I said earlier that it is to date the most comprehensive biography of Jim Henson's life ever written, I mean it. And while I love biographies and autobiographies and I love and adore Jim Henson - I could only read so much of this and then needed to switch to some fluff or something else for awhile. But it still is a fantastic read and I'm so glad I had a chance to read it and that I own my copy so I could take the time to read it at my own pace.
It was written by Brian Jay Jones - an author who was simply a fan of the Muppets from the earliest days - and was quoted as saying "heck, why wouldn't I choose to write about this subject?" He received great cooperation from the Henson family as he did research and interviews - and was even able to access some of Jim's personal journals that went from his youth to practically the day he died. So, this book definitely covers everything about Jim's too brief life on Earth. We learn a lot about his youth, his family and events that impacted him throughout his life. His entire career is covered at length, including his own thoughts from his personal writings, things he was proud of and things he wish he had done better with. All of his work is covered from Sesame Street to Muppet movies to The Dark Crystal and beyond. There is an entire chapter dedicated to the behind the scenes process of the deal he struck to sell the Muppets to Disney - mere weeks before he would pass away. And finally the last chapter covers at length the events that led up to his untimely death in May 1990.
The writing style is pretty approachable - again my only complaint, if you could call it that, is that there is SO much detail on each page. While every word is fascinating, as I said before, sometimes I had to step away a bit due to information overload. Again, I'm not just a "casual" fan but even I learned things I never knew before. And after reaching the end, I'm just as sad as I was when he died that he is no longer with us.
I think it's a worthwhile read if you are a Muppet fan like myself. You may find yourself a little bit bored if you are not, but I think even the most casual of Muppet fans would appreciate things in this book. I also think you could pick and choose what chapters you wanted to read, for example, if you find you mostly are interested in Jim's involvement in Sesame Street, you could simply read the chapter on the Sesame days. I am sure that I will even go back and read bits and pieces at times, I'm sure I missed things on the first go round. Overall my rating is two thumbs up!
