The writer and the man , the son of an Armenian immigrant family
William Saroyan was born in 1908 , in Fresno , California, to immigrant parents who were among those who fled the Turkish persecution of Armenians in Bitlis.
During the Ottoman Empire’s fierce program against the Armenians during World War 1, America welcomed many Armenian immigrants and refugees.
Among them was Saroyan’s family . The Saroyans settled in Fresno – a place which is now widely associated with the name of the great america-armenian writer , William Saroyan.
Getting to know Saroyan as a Universal writer…
My acquaintance with William Saroyan’s works started from “The Human comedy”- a simple yet wonderful story of a family , whose each member sees life in his own way and tries to explore and understand it with the touching curiosity of a child.
Then came the turn of other stories and plays - “The time of your life’’(1939 ,winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama) , “My name is Aram”(1940) “ The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze”(1935) , “The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse ”, “My Heart is in the Highlands”(1939) … and in each of them I was thrilled and excited to find the same wonderful childish curiosity about life, the same funny yet serious Saroyan who writes simple things in a simple manner and makes you feel a part of the universe.
In the book ‘’The Man and the Writer Remembered’’(1987) edited by Leo Hamalian , I found this amazing and quite precise description of Saroyan’s charm,
“Saroyan doesn’t very often write stories; he just writes. He takes nothing for granted . If you are depressed or ill or broke , you pick him up and he does you good.
When Saroyan writes about a car salesman , he is writing about every car salesman in the world starting from Henry Ford. And when he is writing tragedy it is comic and when comic it is tragic- only even more tragic.”(Jack Trevor Story )
Saroyan as an Armenian writer
“We are a product of two things well-known and established by everybody . The inherited and the environment. I am an American by environment . I am an Armenian , that’s who I am”
William Saroyan
Even from his first works Saroyan shows his Armenian soul, his dedication and love to Armenian roots and the lost homeland , starting from Fresno stories (depicting the immigrant armenians’ life and culture in Fresno ) up to his posthumously published plays (An Armenian Trilogy, edited by Dickran Kouymijian).
In one of Saroyan’s short stories ‘The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse’ the hero steals the white horse belonging to a neighbor and denounces any concern or anxiety the latter shows with the theft of his horse:
‘‘It’s no harm. What is the loss of a horse? Haven’t we all lost the homeland? What is this crying over a horse?”
“My Heart’s in the Highlands” is another of the works that reflects Saroyan’s yearning for his ancestral homeland. Though the setting is American and the main hero misses Scotland’s Highland’s , it’s Armenian pain and yearning that inspired Saroyan.
In the book “The man and the writer remembered” the author hints to seek the charm of Saroyan’s writings in his Armenian roots.
“Saroyan created lyric characters that epitomized so brilliantly what was lacking in American society of that time- spontaneity , sincerity , warmth of feeling so characteristic to the Armenians’’
Apparently, Saroyan himself had the same approach to the true soul and heart of his writings. When in May 25 , 1975, Paris , Saroyan was asked
‘How much did your ‘Armenianism’ help you in shaping your being and writing?’
The answer was:
“I am unable to conceive my identity apart from being Armenian. It is as central as the spark of life from the beginning. It is a part of me .I could never live not being Armenian , because of the fact that’s what I am. If somebody came today to me and said ‘Mr . Saroyan, there has been a terrible mistake , your father and your mother both were Turks , and you also are a turk ’. I would repudiate that . It could not enter into my being , because if it had been let’s say genetically possible , the life that supplemented that genetic falsehood would turn out to be a falsehood”
And also…
“I am not a very good student. I don’t know cultures historically and in terms of scholarship. I know them by living only . And so the answer to that question is: my debt to Armenia and therefore all Armenians is incalculable. It is enormous , that’s what it is.”
During his lifetime and the entire creative path Saroyan was always discussing and debating about Armenian-Turkish relations , the return of lost Armenian lands , and questions such as , What do Armenians want ? Who is an Armenian? Why is an Armenian? Do you like being an Armenian?
In one of last works – ‘Harach’ Saroyan makes his last attempt to express his message to all Armenians to endure , survive , flourish . It also affords Armenians , especially in the diaspora , a way to perpetuate the cultural heritage passed on to them through centuries :
“Who shall remember us if we don’t ? Who shall remember the Armenians if they don’t remember themselves?”
In “Enhale and Exhale’’ Saroyan once more expresses his deep pride for being an Armenian, for the wonderful strength of his nation , its stubbornness , the unique capacity of surviving and maintaining its traditions, cheerfulness and love.
“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race , this small tribe of unimportant people , whose wars have all been fought and lost ,whose structures have crumbled , literature is unread , music is unheard , and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead . Destroy this race. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it .Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world , see if they will not create a New Armenia’’
Being deeply honest , sincere and touching , none of Saroyan’s works is addressed to Armenians only (even the ones about Armenia). His heroes use their “Armenianism” merely as a way to look at life, see it in a different shade , in warm and pure colors . This is why every nation , every human being in general , always finds a part of himself in Saroyan’s heroes . This is why Saroyan never fails to find a way up to your heart.
Saroyan’s selected sayings and quotes
Babies who have not yet been taught to speak any language are the only race of the earth, the race of man: all the rest is pretence, what we call civilization, hatred, fear, desire for strength.
Seventy Thousand Assyrians 1934
I cannot see the war as historians see it. I see the war as death in one form or another for men dressed as soldiers, and all the men who survived the war, including myself,
I see as men who died with their brothers, dressed as soldiers. There is no such thing as a soldier.
I see death as a private event, the destruction of the universe in the brain and in the senses of one man, and I cannot see any man's death as a contributing factor in the success or failure of a military campaign.
The Resurrection Of A Life 1935
I love Armenian people - all of them. I love them because they are a part of the enormous human race, which of course I find simultaneously beautiful and vulnerable.
First Visit to Armenia 1935
There is a small area of land in Asia Minor that is called Armenia, but it is not so. It is not Armenia.
It is a place. There are only Armenians, and they inhabit the earth, not Armenia, since there is no Armenia.
There is no America and there is no England, and no France, and no Italy. There is only the earth.
Inhale and Exhale 1936
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
My Heart's in the Highlands 1939
I have made a fiasco of my life, but I have had the right material to work with.
My Heart's in the Highlands 1939
In the time of your life, live-so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness
or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.
Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let be free and unashamed.
Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away.
Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption.
Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow
by the shame and terror of the world.
Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart.
Be the inferior of no man, nor of anyman be the superior.
Remember that every man is a variation of yourself.
No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart.
Despise evil and un godliness but not men of un godliness or evil.
Have no shame in being kindly or gentle.
In the time of your life, live....so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the
misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
The Time of Your Life 1939
You must remember always to give, of everything you have. You must give foolishly even.
You must be extravagant. You must give to all who come into your life.
Then nothing and no one shall have power to cheat you of anything, for if you give to a thief,
he cannot steal from you, and he himself is then no longer a thief.
And the more you give, the more you will have to give.
The Human Comedy 1943
Nothing good ever ends.
If it did, there would be no people in the world - no life at all, anywhere.
And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.
The Human Comedy 1943
