Willie Saroyan
#1
Posted 16 April 2001 - 08:42 AM
Oh, and the pictures I will put of him as when he was younger, he was very handsome!
#2
Posted 17 April 2001 - 12:10 PM
Please discuss his short stories, and talk about what you think of them. If the links do not work in this ost, I'll try and enclose something that does. The thing I like about him like I said before was he wasnt trying to be anything. He wasnt pretentious, but at the same time his intelligence came through anyway. They are works that everyone can read. Everyone can relate to them too, not just as an armenian, but in a total sepreate sense, as a person. I supose anybody reading them, armenian, odar, or whatever, would think, "yes, I can think of a time I've experience that myself" because that's the way I felt went reading them. That is the reason why his work has reached people.
Odars and armenians liked this. They respected him, so listened to what he had to say. He spoke about Armenia and Armenians so everyone becoame interested in this too.
Katerina Ioannou-Kouioumzian (Kazza)
*********************************************
William Saroyan
(1908-1981)
William Saroyan was an internationally renowned Armenian-American writer, playwright and humanitarian.
His fame, and his most enduring achievements as a writer, date from the 1930's. He dazzled, entertained
and uplifted millions, with hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs and essays; they continue to
charm and touch us today.
Saroyan's talent was first projected to the world through the medium of an Armenian-English newspaper,
Hairenik of Boston. In 1934, at the age of 26, with the publication of his first book The Daring Young Man on
the Flying Trapeze, William Saroyan became an overnight literary sensation. His first successful Broadway
play was My Heart's in the Highlands in 1939, and in the same year, Saroyan was the first American writer
to win both the Drama Critic's Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play, The Time of Your Life. He
refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that, "Commerce should not patronize art...," and he
added, "it is no more great or good than anything else I have written."
Saroyan is unique among writers. He acknowledged the Armenian culture as an important source of literary
inspiration, especially notable in the book-of-the-month choice, My Name Is Aram, in 1940. In 1943, another
book-of-the-month choice, The Human Comedy, was dedicated to his mother and made into an MGM movie
which won him an Academy Award for Best Writing Original Screen Story.
In February 1943, 35 year old William Saroyan and 18 year old New York debutante, Carol Marcus, married
in Dayton, Ohio. They were blessed with two children: Aram, born in 1944, and Lucy, born in 1946. Their first
marriage ended after six years. Two years later, in 1951, Saroyan's remarriage to the same wife ended in
divorce for the second and final time.
William Saroyan achieved great popularity through the thirties, forties and fifties. During his lifetime, he
published over sixty books. His works have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have
sold millions. To fully enjoy Saroyan, either in prose or on the stage, you have to be "with" him. This may
require effort, but once you are with him, he can take you places you have never been before. Saroyan
writes humanely and powerfully, with restless enthusiasm. His major themes are aspiration, hope and
honesty; materialism and success mean nothing. His works show the basic goodness of all people,
especially the obscure and naive and the value of life. He once observed that he needed to write, "Because I
hate to believe that I'm sick or half dead, because I want to get better; because writing is my therapy." In the
last book published during Saroyan's lifetime, Obituaries, he wrote: "My work is writing, but my real work is
being."
Saroyan spoke for Armenians to the world. He gave international recognition to his people at a time when
they remained dispersed and continued to meet with prejudice and outright hatred. He brought more public
understanding to the culture and the quality of the Armenian people, than any other person in the history of
the Armenian experience in America. By international standards, he is very likely the most famous literary
figure produced by his ancient people.
William Stonehill Saroyan was born in Fresno, California, on August 31, 1908; the 4th child of Armenian
immigrants Armenak Saroyan preacher and poet, and Takoohi Saroyan, of Bitlis. On May 18, 1981, he died
of prostate cancer at the age of 72, about a mile from where he was born. "Everybody has got to die," he
said, "but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?" William Saroyan
died, an artistic era ended. He loved America, but he did not forget Armenia. Saroyan wanted his heart in
the Armenian highlands. A year after his death, half of his cremated remains were permanently enshrined in
the Pantheon of Greats in Yerevan, Armenia, while the other half remained in Fresno, California.
On May 22, 1991, William Saroyan was the first and only individual to be jointly honored by the USA--as
part of its Literary Arts Series and the USSR Postal Services on their Commemorative Postal Stamps.
First-day-issue ceremonies took place simultaneously in Fresno, California, and in Yerevan, Armenia.
The number of unpublished manuscript left by William Saroyan, surpasses the massive bibliography of his
published works. Since his death in 1981, over 15 books have been published about his life and works.
**********************************************
Please discuss his short stories, and talk about what you think of them. If the links do not work in this ost, I'll try and enclose something that does. The thing I like about him like I said before was he wasnt trying to be anything. He wasnt pretentious, but at the same time his intelligence came through anyway. They are works that everyone can read. Everyone can relate to them too, not just as an armenian, but in a total sepreate sense, as a person. I supose anybody reading them, armenian, odar, or whatever, would think, "yes, I can think of a time I've experience that myself" because that's the way I felt went reading them. That is the reason why his work has reached people.
[ April 17, 2001: Message edited by: Kazza ]
#3
Posted 17 April 2001 - 02:18 PM
"The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the
depth of his soul every man is. He is
discontented with everything and everybody. The
writer is everybody's best friend and only true
enemy - the good and great enemy. He neither
walks with the multitude nor cheers with them.
The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never
stops." (from The William Saroyan Reader, 1958)
**********************************************
Selected works:
THE DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING
TRAPEZE, 1934
THOSE WHO WRITE THEM AND YHOSE WHO
COLLECT THEM, 1934
INHALE AND EXHALE, 1936
THREE TIMES THREE, 1936
A GAY AND MELANCHOLY FLUX, 1937
LITTLE CHILDREN, 1937
A NATIVE AMERICAN, 1938
THE MAN WITH THE HEART IN THE HIGHLANDS,
1938 (play)
THE TROUBLE WITH TIGERS, 1938
LOVE, HERE'S MY HAT, 1938
LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG, 1939
CHRISTMAS, 1939
HARLEM AS SEEN BY HIRSCHFIELD, 1939
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS, 1939 - Sydämeni
on kukkuloilla
ed.: HAIRENIK 1934-1939, 1939
PEACE, IT'S WONDERFUL, 1939
THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, 1939
THREE FRAGMENTS AND A STORY, 1939
THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, 1940 (play) - Tämä elämäsi
aika / Elämäni parhain aika - film 1948, dir. by H.C. Potter
HERO OF THE WORLD, 1940 (play)
LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG, 1940 (play)
THE PING PONG CIRCUS, 1940 (play)
A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, 1940 (play)
SUBWAY CIRCUS, 1940 (play)
SWEENEY IN THE TREES, 1940 (play)
MY NAME IS ARAM, 1940 - Nimeni on Aram
SAROYANS FABLES, 1941
THREE PLAYS, 1941
THE INSURANCE SALESMAN, 1941
THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, 1941 (play)
THE PEOPLE WITH LIGHT COMING OUT OF THEM,
1941 (play)
HILLTOP RUSSIANS IN SAN FRANCISCO, 1941
RAZZLE DAZZLE, 1942
THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, 1942 (play)
HELLO OUT THERE, 1942 (play)
ACROSS THE BOARD ON TOMORROW MORNING,
1942 (play)
THE AGONY OF LITTLE NATIONS, 1942 (play)
BAD MEN IN THE WEST, 1942 (play)
COMING THROUGH THE RYE, 1942 (play)
ELMER AN LILY, 1942 (play)
THE POETIC SITUATION IN AMERICA, 1942 (play)
TALKING TO YOU, 1942 (play)
GET AWAY,OLD MAN, 1943
THE HUMAN COMEDY, 1943 - Ihmisä elämän
näyttämöllä - film 1943, dir. by Clarence Brown
DEAR BABY, 1944
GET AWAY, OLD MAN, 1944 (play)
THE HUNGERERS, 1945 (play)
WHY ABSTRACT?
THE ADVENTURES OF WESLEY JACKSON, 1946
JIM DANDY, 1947 (play)
THE SAROYAN SPECIAL, 1948
THE FISCAL HOBOES, 1949
A DECENT BIRTH, 1949
SAM EGO'S HOUSE, 1949
A DECENT BIRTH, A HAPPY FUNERAL, 1949 (play)
DON'T GO AWAY MAD, 1949 (play)
SAM EGO'S HOUSE, 1949 (play)
THE ASSYRIANS, 1950
TWIN ADVENTURES, 1950
THE SON, 1950 (play)
THE TWIN ADVENTURES, 1950
TRACY'S TIGER, 1951
ROCK WAGRAM, 1951
THE BICYCLE RIDER IN BEVERLY HILLS, 1952
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS, 1952
THE LAUGHING MATTER, 1953
THE BICICLE RIDER IN BEVERLY HILLS, 1953
MAMA, I LOVE YOU, 1953
OPERA, OPERA, 1950 (play)
MAMA, I LOVE YOU, 1956
THE WHOLE VOYALD, 1956
PAPA, YOU'RE CRAZY, 1957
EVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH A MIDGET?, 1957 (play)
THE WHOLE VOYALD AND OTHER STORIES, 1957
THE CAVE DWELLERS, 1958 (play)
THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS, 1958 (play)
THE ACCIDENT, 1958 (play)
THE WILLIAM SAROYAN READER, 1958
CAT, MOUSE, MAN, WOMAN, 1958 (play)
ONCE AROUND THE BLOCK, 1959 (play)
SETTLED OUT OF COURT, 1960 (play, with F. Cecil)
SAM, THE HIGHEST JUMPER OF THEM ALL, 1961
(play)
HERE COMES, THERE GOES YOU KNOW WHO,
1961
HIGH TIMES ALONG THE WABASH, 1961 (play)
HERE COMES, THERE GOES, YOU KNOW WHO,
1961
A NOTE ON HILAIRE HILER, 1962
AH MAN, 1962 (play, with P. Fricker)
NOT DYING, 1963
ME, 1963
BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER, 1963
PATIENT, THIS I BELIEVE, 1963 (play)
THE PLAYWRIGHT AND THE PUBLIC, 1963 (play)
SHORT DRIVE, SWEET CHARIOT, 1964
AFTER TWENTY YEARS, 1964
ONE DAY IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE WORLD,
1964
SHORT DRIVE SWEET CHARIOT, 1966
LOOK AT US, 1967
DENTIST AND PATIENT, 1968 (play)
THE DOGS, 1968 (play)
HORSEY GORSEY AND THE FROG, 1968
HUSBAND AND WIFE, 1968 (play)
I USED TO BELIEVE I HAD FOREVER, BUT NOW I'M
NOT SO SURE, 1969
LETTERS FROM 74 RUE TAITBOUT, 1969
MAKING MONEY, AND 19 OTHER VERY SHORT
PLAYS, 1969
DAYS OF LIFE AND DEATH AND ESCAPE TO THE
MOON, 1970
THE NEW PLAY, 1970 (play)
DAYS OF LIFE AND DEATH AND ESCAPE TO THE
MOON, 1971
PLACES WHERE I'VE DONE TIME, 1972
ARMENIANS, 1974 (play)
THE TOOTH AND MY FATHER, 1974
PLACES WHERE I'VE DONE TIME, 1975
THE REBIRTH CELEBRATIONS OF THE HUMAN
RACE AT ARTIE ZABALA'S OFF-BROADWAY
THEATRE, 1975 (play)
SONS COME AND GO, MOTHERS HANG IN
FOREVER, 1976
AN ACT OR TWO OF FOOLISH KINDNESS, 1976
FAMOUS FACES AND OTHER FRIENDS, 1976
MORRIS HIRSCHFIELD, 1976
SONS COME AND GO, MOTHERS HANG IN
FOREVER, 1976
THE ASHTREE TALKERS, 1977
CHANGE MEETINGS, 1978
ed.: HAYATS'UTS' HOVHANNES, 1978
OBITUARIES, 1979
TALES FROM THE VIENNA TALES, 1981
BIRTHS, 1981
MY NAME IS SAROYAN, 1983
THE PHEASANT HUNTER, 1986
AN ARMENIAN TRILOGY, 1986
THE CIRCUS, 1986
MADNESS IN THE FAMILY, 1988
WARSAW VISITOR; TALES FROM THE VIENNA
STREETS, 1991
© 2000
#4
Posted 27 April 2001 - 11:12 AM
[ April 27, 2001: Message edited by: MadArmo ]
#5
Posted 30 April 2001 - 03:18 AM
#6
Posted 30 April 2001 - 08:29 AM
codeto show the picture where ImageURL is the address to that image file. If you can't save those pictures online just email them to me and I'll put them on our server.[img]ImageURL[/img ]
#7
Posted 30 April 2001 - 02:06 PM
#8
Posted 05 May 2001 - 11:33 PM
#9
Posted 04 March 2002 - 01:13 PM
By MARK ARAX, TIMES STAFF WRITER
FRESNO -- Twenty years after he uttered one of the great parting lines--"Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?"--the ashes of writer William Saroyan were buried Sunday in the town where his genius first sprang.
The roundabout nature of his final journey, which came amid Fresno's first Saroyan Festival, would have delighted the author and playwright to no end. Never short on confidence, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize and an Oscar, Saroyan figured he was too out-sized to be kept in one place.
Half his ashes were shipped in 1982 to a memorial in Armenia, and the other half sat in obscurity in an urn on a chapel shelf here. Now on a springlike day filled with the sweet smell of apricot blossoms, those ashes were laid to rest in a grave beside the railroad tracks on the outskirts of town. It was a fitting spot for Fresno's most famous native son, whose writings put the town on the world map but also poked fun at it.
All around Ararat Cemetery were the markers of the Armenian immigrants he brought to life in his short stories ("My Name is Aram," 1940), novels ("The Human Comedy," 1943), plays ("My Heart's in the Highlands," 1939) and songs. Here were cousins who stole beautiful white horses and farmers who swore they were poets and mothers who could feed a houseful of strangers with one chicken and five ripe pears.
His son, Aram, and daughter, Lucy, who had spent years trying to come to peace with their father's life and legend, listened with a handful of his old friends and dignitaries as the priest of the First Armenian Presbyterian Church prayed over the black granite headstone.
Saroyan, of course, had written his own epitaph:
"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 at the infinite delight and mystery of it."
This town, which still isn't quite sure what to make of Saroyan, dead or alive, had spent the previous two days celebrating the work of its greatest export, if you don't count the raisin. The ongoing 2-month-long festival of theater productions, philharmonic concerts, museum exhibits and literary talks is an attempt to revive a writer who rose to soaring heights in the 1930s and '40s but has long since fallen out of critical favor.
It is also a way for Fresno, spreading out into the mass form of Wal-Marts and McDonald's it now shares with every other city, to find a way back to its past.
For his few friends still living, the community's bow to the exuberant Armenian with the walrus mustache and deep belly laugh is years past due.
They have never quite forgiven city fathers for refusing to keep a treasure trove of unpublished manuscripts and memorabilia that secured Saroyan's place as one of America's most prolific writers and pack rats. After years of gathering dust, the collection was shipped away in boxes, first to UC Berkeley and then to Stanford University.
The sheer volume--from his frayed shoelaces to his mustache clippings to the pebbles he collected on his furious bike rides through town to the words that never stopped pouring out of his Royal typewriter--takes up more than 250 feet of shelf space.
The collection of another California literary lion, John Steinbeck, whose 100-year birthday is being celebrated this month in his hometown of Salinas, measures a mere 20 linear feet.
Like so many Armenians, the Saroyans had come to this land of grapes and peaches in 1908 to escape the pogroms of Ottoman Turkey. Saroyan's father, Armenak, a minister and frustrated poet, died when William was 3. Death would become one of the central obsessions of Saroyan's work.
"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really sleep," he once wrote to aspiring writers. "Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."
High school couldn't contain him, and he dropped out at 15, continuing his education at the public library, bedazzled by Edgar Lee Master's "Spoon River Anthology." When he wasn't reading, he was walking the ditch banks and fields, discovering the eternal struggle between the horned toad, which was trying to hold on to his world, and the farmer, who was trying to engineer a new one.
"Fresno had a great early appeal for me," he wrote. "It had a fine smell of dust, of the desert, of rocks baking in the sun . . . of leaf and blossom and fruit."
By 18, he wanted nothing more than to leave its small town "rot and decay and ferment." He moved to San Francisco and then bought a one-way train ticket to New York City. He proceeded to write a short story every day in a bursting, spontaneous style.
A Difficult Start in New York City
Just as swiftly came the rejection letters from magazine editors. Who was this cocky kid who dared to riff a whole page on the miracle of breathing?
Holed up in the Mills Hotel, he considered calling it quits but had only $50, too little for the train fare home. On New Year's Day 1929, he wrote to his best pal, Yep Moradian, about his desire to return to a simple life of pruning vines:
"Xmas brought me the flu; fever 104; burning hot in sweat; no friends; too homesick to want to die; had dreams for four days and nights of home and the old scenes and meals. I am positive now that I am a God damn fool."
His fever broke, and he turned it into a story about a poverty-stricken young writer with only tap water and Proust to fill his belly. The publication of "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" in 1934 was the break Saroyan needed.
For the next 15 years, his work was everywhere--in short stories and novels, on Broadway and on records, including the hit song by Rosemary Clooney, "Come On-a My House," which he wrote in the idiom of an Armenian woman trying to entice a guest with figs and dates and nuts and cakes.
"Saroyan was a lot more than a short story writer," said Bob Setrakian, a local farm boy who became a San Francisco businessman and heads the foundation overseeing Saroyan's legacy. "He worked in all the art forms and drew and painted almost every day."
Setrakian said it was bad enough that some of Saroyan's finest stories were out of print and he couldn't interest a single publisher in the boxes of never-before-seen manuscripts. But then to realize that so much of Saroyan's life and work was unknown to the people who should know him best--the residents of Fresno.
So Setrakian shared the idea of a festival with local impresario Larry Balakian. Before he knew it, Balakian had signed on more than 29 nonprofit organizations and scores of volunteers.
Winemakers at Cal State Fresno bottled a 2000 vintage Saroyan Syrah. The nation's first bus "graphically wrapped" in the visage of a writer, the "Saroyan bus," hit the streets last week.
There was no attempt during the festival's opening weekend to slap varnish on Saroyan's complex legend. Whether it was a museum exhibit or a literary symposium, he was portrayed with all his conceit and vices and desire to "hang in there and wrestle death to a draw, at least."
At a reception to honor her old friend, Roxie Moradian, Yep's widow, recalled when Saroyan was one of the most talked about writers in the world. The self-doubt of the fatherless boy, who grew up in a town that barred Armenians from country clubs and elite subdivisions, seemed vanished.
This was a Saroyan who bragged that he could write an entire play in three days and then wrote the Pulitzer Prize winner, "The Time of Your Life," in six days. He ended up rejecting the prize because the play was "no more great than anything else I have ever written."
What he never quite mastered was family life. He married Carol Marcus, a New York debutante, and they had two children together. They divorced, remarried and divorced again before she wound up with actor Walter Matthau.
In his later years, estranged from his children, Saroyan split time between Paris and Fresno. Broke from playing the ponies and roulette tables and owing the IRS a debt no writer in his 50s could pay, he turned inward to a life of documenting every external facet of his existence.
When he finished eating a can of green beans, for instance, he would neatly take off the label and sign the backside with the year, month, day and hour. He did the same with his Metro tickets from France, playing cards, typewriter ribbons, rocks he picked up off the streets.
"I think Saroyan's last gesture, while seemingly mad, was really the final selfless act of a writer. By putting his signature to the items of everyday life, he was documenting everyday life," said Aris Janigian, a professor of Humanities at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
Half His Ashes in Fresno Since 1981
Saroyan died in 1981 at 72, and his ashes, at least half of them, have sat in Fresno's Chapel of Light in a golden urn inscribed, "Author and Humanitarian." Aram Saroyan said it was only right that his father's remains come to rest in Ararat Cemetery, where he used to wander the grounds in the rain, talking to the headstones.
On a bright, cloudless Sunday, about 20 friends and family huddled around a huge black stone imported from India. A hole had been dug among the names Garabedian, Simonian and Krikorian.
"Welcome home, dear friend, dear writer," said Kevin Starr, author and California state librarian. "Welcome home to the place that haunted and nurtured you across a lifetime. Be at peace, Bill. Be at peace."
http://www.latimes.c.....es-california
[ March 04, 2002, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: Azat ]
#10
Posted 05 March 2002 - 05:39 AM
#11
Posted 05 March 2002 - 06:46 AM
Thank you for that wonderful post. I feel truly honored that Saroyan was one of us. His words and attitudes (such as the "New Armenia" concept - one that I have frequently referred to in arguments with certain Armenians who insist that we must retake "our" lands in Anatolia etc etc - well its clear what Bill would think...) and the quote from the article you posted:
"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 at the infinite delight and mystery of it."
Many of the same Armenians - as well as some other could stand taking this to heart a bit - eh?
#12
Posted 05 March 2002 - 07:44 AM
Saroyan, 1941.
#13
Posted 05 March 2002 - 11:22 AM
Yes, they did. But I don't think that Saroyan did.
There is a sickness within the Armenian community that drives so many of us out. Armenians are as guilty for the White Genocide as the Young Turks Ottomans were for the Red Genocide. My brother is now married to a Christian, so I do not know if he still practices Judaism.
Saroyan with all his smarts was very stupid on the home front. He once told his beautiful blond young wife that she was too beautiful to be a Jew. Not too smartA THING TO TELLL OUR WIFE
#14
Posted 05 March 2002 - 11:31 AM
Last sentence of my previous post should read. "Not too smart a thing to tell your wife." Just think how Gregory Peck must have felt sitting at numerous dinners at the home of Carol and Walter Matthau when Carol would relate Willie's anti-Semitic remarks to her before and after they had made the love that brought their children to the world. No wonder he permanently buried the fact that his grandfather was a British-national Armenian Catholic.
#15
Posted 06 March 2002 - 12:18 AM
#16
Posted 05 March 2002 - 02:22 PM
Originally posted by THOTH:
...
"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 at the infinite delight and mystery of it."
...
#17
Posted 05 March 2002 - 03:49 PM
Originally posted by Azat:
Originally posted by THOTH:
...
"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 at the infinite delight and mystery of it."
...
And back to the quote...perhaps Saroyan was (secretly?) a Buddist or a Daoist...what'ya think?
#18
Posted 05 March 2002 - 04:00 PM
perhaps Saroyan was (secretly?) a Buddist or a Daoist...what'ya think?
#19
Posted 05 March 2002 - 04:14 PM
Originally posted by Juggernaut:
perhaps Saroyan was (secretly?) a Buddist or a Daoist...what'ya think?
Originally posted by Juggernaut:
[QUOTE]At one point I was even considering conversion, but I realised that I would be carrying out the ultimate crime toward my peoples and their history, and my faith in Christianity and God has re-doubled because of this inspiration.
#20
Posted 06 March 2002 - 02:53 AM
Stuff it already - your just wrong.
It seems to me that the Church (and Christian belief) fail us now in many respect.
what would you have me do - fake it?
how do you suggest we turn back the clock (you are suggesting that this is preferrable are you not?)
And the Armenian church (as most traditional churches) is unable (aparently to sufficiantly adapt)...thats the problem with dogma i guess...
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