Saroyan, William

Saroyan, William (1908–81),California author, whose short stories are marked by an impressionistic, rhapsodic manner, and a sentimental exaltation of characters ranging from Armenian American workers like himself to middle‐class businessmen, all somehow optimistically associated with the glory of an American dream. His impetuous and undiscriminating love for all sorts of people and situations, his very common fictionalizing of personal experience, and his ability to use what he calls the “jump‐in‐the‐river‐and‐start‐to‐swim‐immediately” type of writing al‐lowed him to produce a steady flow of short fiction, published in The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934); Inhale and Exhale (1936); Three Times Three (1936); Little Children (1937); A Native American (1938); The Trouble with Tigers (1938); Love, Here Is My Hat (1938); Peace, It's Wonderful (1939); My Name Is Aram (1940), about the exuberant experiences of some Armenian children in California; Fables (1941); Dear Baby (1944); The Whole Voyald (1956); and I Used To Believe I Had Forever, Now I'm Not So Sure (1967), composed of stories, essays, and poems.

His novels include The Human Comedy (1943), set in California and mainly about children; The Adventures of Wesley Jackson (1946), a loosely knit, whimsical account of a Saroyanesque army private's war experiences, incorporated in The Twin Adventures (1950) with The Adventures of William Saroyan, an “hour‐to‐hour chronicle of a writer at work on the writing of a novel”; Rock Wagram (1951); Mama, I Love You (1956), about a nine‐year‐old girl's fantastic theatrical life with her mother; Papa, You're Crazy (1957); Boys and Girls Together (1963), a novella about a young writer and his wife; and One Day in the Afternoon of the World (1964), a bittersweet picture of an aging author.

His many plays are also written in his own characteristic loose style and set forth views like those of his fiction. My Heart's in the Highlands (1939) is an amorphous short play illustrating the idea that worldly success means nothing and that only aspiration counts. The Time of Your Life (1939), awarded a Pulitzer Prize that Saroyan refused, is a full‐length play about people at a San Francisco waterfront bar, whose basic virtue is revealed when a wealthy drunk gives them money to pursue their hopes and dreams. Other plays include Love's Old Sweet Song (1941), a farce comedy; The Beautiful People (1941), with a theme like that of The Time of Your Life, and included with Sweeney in the Trees and Across the Board on Tomorrow Morning in Three Plays (1941); Razzle‐Dazzle (1942), short plays; Get Away Old Man (1944), about a young writer in Hollywood; Jim Dandy, Fat Man in a Famine (1947), symbolizing Saroyan's conception of brotherly love; Don't Go Away Mad (1949); and The Cave Dwellers (1958), a fantasy set in New York.

The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952) is an autobiographical work, and he wrote more in this vein and less fiction as he grew older, but his recollections are also very creative. They include Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who (1962); Not Dying (1963); Short Drive, Sweet Chariot (1966), musings and a conversation while driving across the U.S.; Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon (1970); Places Where I've Done Time (1972); Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang In Forever (1976); Chance Meetings (1978); and Obituaries (1979), digressive recollections of deceased celebrities with reflections on death and life.