Who is the Charlie Browniest?

A fat biography of Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, fuels the long-standing hypothesis that Charles Schulz is Charlie Brown.

Schulz is indeed Charlie Brown with all Charlie's insecurities, fears and loneliness. How could this old hypothesis not be true? Don't all artists draw their characters from themselves and their own lives? Aren't all the characters in our dreams really us?

In detailing Schulz's childhood, author David Michaelis tries too hard to fault the parents. Schulz's parents were not your average PTA parents, but they seemed better than average. Schulz was an awkward kid, humble to the point of annoying and clean-living to the point of boring.

The Schulz offspring cooperated with the biographer but were miffed at the resulting portrait he paints. I can see why. For a different point of view, read the New York Times review.

The author over-emphasizes events and statements that demonstrate Schulz's low self worth and glosses over Schulz's many triumphs. Schulz's army service gave him a lot of confidence and pulled him from his sheltered St. Paul environment. His job at Art Instruction, Inc provided him with camaraderie and status. Those periods were two big chunks of his early adult life.

Draw Me!

Kudos to Schulz for seeking out employment and companionship with fellow artists, albeit at an unusual artistic venue. (Remember Art Instruction, Inc aka the "Draw Me! school? In the back of magazines, the school advertised, "Can you draw Binky the Skunk?")

Schulz's singular determination to become a cartoonist, his persistent submission of his work demonstrated atypical self confidence, not the reverse. Schulz impressed me when he turned down a job offer to work at Disney, because he did not want to become just a part of a pool of animators. (I might have taken that job.)

The biography is well-written, well-researched and sprinkled with strips illustrating how he used incidents in his own life as material. The strips bring the point home, helping the reader recognize or remember the simple brilliance of Peanuts.

Watch David Michaelis speak about Charles Schulz

Michaelis may be a Charlie Brown himself, always positioning what seems like normal events into a negative framework. As I rounded the corner into the second half of the book, the theme of "Charles is Charlie" turned into "Success does not make Schulz happy."

Around this point, I started to feel depressed myself. Maybe I had a few tough days, but I suspected the book itself might be making me feel very Charlie Brownie. I intend to finish the book, but for now, I have set it aside for a sunny day.