Saroyan

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, July 24, 2003

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I have been reading two recent biographies

of Thomas Mann and William Saroyan.

In the Mann biography money is seldom mentioned.

In the Saroyan the $ sign appears

on almost every other page.

*

Saroyan, we are told, hated

"statesmen, churchmen and businessmen"

(that is, bosses, bishops and benefactors).

His hatred of businessmen was such that

he rejected the Pulitzer Prize – at a time when

he needed the money.

Mann, by contrast, married the daughter of a capitalist.

*

Saroyan gambled like Dostoevsky,

shared initials with William Shakespeare

and in his thirties he confided to his editor

that if he took the trouble he could write a novel

like Mann’s MAGIC MOUNTAIN.

*

He and Ross Bagdasarian are such good friends,

Saroyan once wrote from London to his young wife in New York,

that they even fart in unison.

*

Stupidity also consists in underestimating

the stupidity of your enemy.

*

You cannot argue with somebody

who thinks you are nobody.

*

Forgiveness comes easy to those

who sustain only superficial wounds.

*

A typical Armenian leader has a Plan A for the nation,

but a Plan A and B (and sometimes even C and D)

for himself.

Even when the nation loses, he wins.