WILLIAM SAROYAN: A 30-YEAR RETROSPECT
By: Tom Vartabedian
Wed, Sep 28 2011
The question remains: If you could have dinner with any prominent
Armenian, dead or alive, who might it be?
William Saroyan, in one of his last photos taken by this writer during
a book signing at Belmont High School, shortly before his death in
1981, at the age of 72.
Would it be Mashdots, Gomidas, or Khachaturian? Perhaps Mamigonian,
Karsh, Cher, Aznavour or Kardashian?
No doubt, all of them would be perfect subjects with which to converse
and get to know on a personal basis. Mine would be William Saroyan.
Hard to believe that 30 years have passed since this prominent
novelist, playwright, and short story writer left the planet. His
absence created a void in the international literary world that has
not and cannot be filled by any other.
Gone but not forgotten.
I would venture to say that Saroyan’s popularity has not waned one
iota. He’s as renowned today as in the primal years when he crafted
the stories that entertained one generation after another-from his
early days as a Hairenik Weekly scribe to his Pulitizer Prize (for
“The Time of Your Life”), 28 books, 25 plays, and a plethora of
short stories. And, oh yes, a song (“Come-on-a-My House”), which was
immortalized by Rosemary Clooney.
I would ask him where he got his inspiration. Was he an impulse
writer? What would he regard as his most satisfying work? And which
one made the biggest impact?
I would ask him what he thought of Armenian writers today and if
there were any worthy of perpetuating his fame.
I have in my hand an inaugural issue of the Armenian Review, dated
1948, that contains Saroyan’s “The Theological Student.” In a word:
“impeccable.”
Saroyan starts out by telling us about a theologian he met a quarter
century ago in the plays of certain Russian writers, like Tolstoy,
Chekhov, and Gorki.
What struck me as unusual about the piece was nothing else pertaining
to Saroyan. No introduction. No short bio. Nothing that might elucidate
a reader about who the author was, or anything about his story.
His words were well crafted, poignant, and mesmerizing, like you
were the one conversing with his subjects. He later adopted the pen
name Sirak Garoyan. Why? I don’t know. Why would anyone dilute their
given name?
I was only eight when that issue was launched, but Saroyan has been
a role model ever since. I read his stories throughout high school
with a voracious appetite. My favorite? The Human Comedy.
We met three times. The first encounter came in 1960 at the Mekhitarist
Monastery in Vienna. A mere 19 then, I had taken my sophomore year
off from Boston University to study at the vank.
One day while poking about the library, I stumbled upon this gangling
figure with a handlebar moustache, huddled over a pile of books. His
eyes were like dancing marbles as he studied the pages.
He introduced himself as Saroyan, as if his identity didn’t precede
him. I told him I wanted to become a writer like himself and what
words of wisdom could he impart.
He looked up at me and snickered, “Write what you see and what you
feel,” he said with encouragement. “Just be yourself. Draw upon your
own experiences.”
I remember him pointing toward an old bearded scholar cowering in
the corner of that library, documenting a copy of “Hantes Amsora,”
a Mekhitarist publication.
“See that priest over there,” Saroyan said. “He’s written 50 books. I
have a long way to go to catch him. There’s nothing like the first
one.”
Saroyan made his breakthrough in Story magazine with “The Daring Young
Man on the Flying Trapeze” (1934), the protagonist being a young,
starving writer who tries to survive in a Depression-ridden society. I
recall giving a report on it to my high school English class.
Five years following the Mekhitarist experience, I made my way up three
flights of stairs inside the old Hairenik Building at 212 Stuart St. in
Boston, prepared to submit a story to the editor, Jimmy Tashjian.
In his seat was Saroyan. With no pants. Perhaps I mentioned this
before but good stories bear repeating from time to time. Seems
Saroyan was in Boston for a speaking engagement at the Ritz and ran
into an embarrassing problem: He couldn’t close the zipper to his
fly and asked Tashjian to find a tailor nearby.
So there he sat, bony-legged and all, somewhat embarrassed by his
appearance, never suspecting an outsider. I happened to remind him that
we had met five years prior in Vienna and he didn’t seem to recall
the incident, only to say his visits to the monastery were regular
and it was a pity how so many books in that library were being ignored.
Our last encounter followed a year or so before his demise. Saroyan
had come to Belmont High School for a talk and book signing. A new
work was just released titled Obituaries, an original and candid
meditation about death and our only possible answer to it.
In some ways, I considered the work a memorial tribute to himself-the
manner in which mortality overtakes us and the way we might prepare
for it.
The line was 50 deep with guests when I made my way to Saroyan’s
table. I didn’t bother with re-introductions that evening, but did
beg for his indulgence in another way by asking him to pose for
a photograph.
He looked up with a stoic expression as I clicked the shutter. I
don’t think Karsh would have done much better given the situation.
Some months later, I read his obituary and dug out the photograph.
Turned out to be the perfect illustration for a Jimmy Tashjian
anthology on the author, and wound up being donated with some others
to his Fresno museum.
Thirty years later and time marches on. Like he once said, “Death is
not the end of a good Armenian. But the beginning. For when two of
them meet …”
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/09/28/william-saroyan-a-30-year-retrospect/