Saroyan, William

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SAROYAN AGAIN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Caught in the grind of every day life...
Perfect intro to Saroyan
Surprisingly strong stories
A Great Intro to a Great Author

The William Saroyan Reader
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: Barricade Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Human Comedy
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ASIN: 1569800197

Book Description

This is the most complete and generous sampling of the first half of an indispensable American writer's career.

Customer Reviews:

SAROYAN AGAIN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.......2007-05-15

I first read the stories in this collection from 1956 to 1961. They are as great as ever with "The Adventures of Wesley Jackson" having a whole new meaning and as beautiful,warm and poetic as always. (Why don't they make a TV series out of Wesley Jackson?)

What a great gift idea for Saroyan fans and those who have never had the pleasure of reading one of his stories. The stories were selected by Saroyan himself and there is an introduction by his son Aram. The collection includes some of my alltime favorites such as "The Man With His Heart In The Highlands," and "70,000 Assyrians," and also his Pulitzer Prize winning "The Time of Your Life." (Be sure to read the speech he gave when he turned down the award.)

I bought it to take on a trip and it was a fond companion. Well worth the investment. Enjoy!

Caught in the grind of every day life..........2007-04-21

William Saroyan was a great American author of short stories, short novels, plays and poetry. As an Armenian-American from Fresno, California, many of his stories touch upon that background; but there is much more in Saroyan. He writes about simple, ordinary everyday people (anti-heroes), caught in the grind of every day life.

His most outstanding works are presented in this anthology including: "Saroyan Prizes", "70,000 Assyrians", "A Cold Day", "The Living and the Dead", "Finlandia" and "A Writer's Declaration". Every one of these works is existential, pondering love, art, war, peace and prosperity. The characters are your real, everyday people taken out of thier mundane circumstances that most of us face daily.

Saroyan's eloquent but essentially simple style makes for easy but reflective reading.

Perfect intro to Saroyan.......2003-03-01

This book does a great job of introducing you to the writings of William Saroyan. His novels, plays and short stories capture life in a succinct style I have never seen repeated. My favorite are his short stories, which I never want to stop reading. In a few pages he brings characters, events and places to life.

Surprisingly strong stories.......2002-05-13

William Saroyan is a wonderful writer for would-be writers to take a deeper look at. Not because his prose is so wonderful or because his stories are so engaging, but because he states most succinctly what every writer feels. That, though they have plenty of written pages, they feel like they have said nothing at all. And if Saroyan can feel this way and still produce what he has, well, there is hope then.

"Oranges" and "Finlandia" are the stand-out pieces in the collection as far as I'm concerned, though many others have a thought or two that linger. "Oranges" is heartbreaking, a story about a little orphan boy forced to sell oranges on the street corner, a little orphan boy who doesn't know what it is to laugh. And "Finlandia" deals with the idea of time and geography in a very thought provoking and musical manner. Many images and sounds are striking.

I was rather surprised myself that I liked Saroyan's work and ended up keeping the book when I had thought to donate it to a local library.

A Great Intro to a Great Author.......2000-09-22

If you've never been lucky enough to be exposed to the down-to-earth writing of William Saroyan, you are definitely missing out on a treat. Saroyan's short stories, autobiographical writings, and novels are simple realism, stretched to heart rending emotional height. This book is a fine compilation for a new reader of Saroyan, who, like his California colleague, Steinbeck, doesn't get enough attention these days. Also, this collection contains the wonderful novella, "Tracy's Tiger," an incredible allegorical tale of love and struggle in the postmodern world.

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Human Comedy
The Human Comedy--Pathos and Humor, Joy and Sorrow
If it could only be true
A modern classic ... but not exactly comedy
Humanity and Innocence in amber

The Human Comedy
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0440339332
Release Date: 1966-08-15

Book Description

The place is Ithaca, in California's San Joaquin Valley. The time is World War II. The family is the Macauley's -- a mother, sister, and three brothers whose struggles and dreams reflect those of America's second-generation immigrants.. In particular, fourteen-year-old Homer, determined to become one of the fastest telegraph messengers in the West, finds himself caught between reality and illusion as delivering his messages of wartime death, love, and money brings him face-to-face with human emotion at its most naked and raw.

Gentle, poignant and richly autobiographical, this delightful novel shows us the boy becoming the man in a world that even in the midst of war, appears sweeter, safer and more livable than out own.

Customer Reviews:

Human Comedy.......2007-04-19

Classic story about family and impact of WWII. Never grows old, a book to be read and enjoyed over and over.

The Human Comedy--Pathos and Humor, Joy and Sorrow.......2006-11-09

Wonderful, feel-good book about family and moral values...Humor and pathos of life properly and wonderfullly mixed...

Though it was written during World War II, it is still a great read, well worth the short time and little effort needed to read and enjoy it...especially meaningful in time of war, rather it be a World War or war in Iraq and Afghanistan...

The world--Ithaca and the United States--was probably never this good, never this pure, but it brings to mind and to heart our highest and finest moments and makes us wish there were more of them. And there could be, if we would pursue the hightest in man, not the lowest.

If it could only be true.......2006-07-17

This uplifting and poignant little novel is probably how Saroyan will best be remembered. Saroyan's faith in the inherent goodness of human beings, even in the midst of the horrors of WWII, remained unshaken, and the book is populated by memorable characters who somehow manage to transcend the banal, evil vicissitudes of the war without being dehumanized and debased by it, as many others were. But Saroyan's unshakable and seemingly naive faith in people was belied by the stark reality of the war, and after WWII his fame declined, although he had been one of the most famous writers of the period between the two wars, including a stint on Broadway where he wrote many plays in addition to his novels. But this book remains a vivid and appealing testament to a failed belief in a noble idea of a human race that unfortunately doesn't exist. If only humans were truly like this, and this noble, but unfortunately for Saroyan and for his legacy, they aren't.

A modern classic ... but not exactly comedy.......2006-06-01

The Human Comedy is an exelent peice of literature, filled to the brim with many things encountetred in life. It warms the heart with some bits, and shreds it to peices with others. Saroyans words will be rembered by most all the readers who have had the pleasure of this book.
Even so, it is not for all. The most dissapointing factor in the text would probably be the length of it. The book has great writing, but doesnt continue on and leaves the reader starving for more and ending up going hungry.
Another drawback is the writting style. It is simple enough for a third grader to read and undersand more or less. Even if the ideas can seem profound and the charecters will worm their ways into our hearts, it leaves a person who read and understood 'Hamlet' at seven a little dissapointed.
Even with these short comings, The Human Comedy is a heart warming tale that never fails to touch me deeply. I have re-read it once a year for four years, and I never get boared(sp?). One of the better books that Saroyan has written, its one of the three ones still in print, and rightfully so.
One more thing you should be warned about is the constant switch of charecters that goes on each new chapter. It can be a little dissorienting at first, but you will get used to it if you just hold on long enough. I recomend this book, written in the third person with enough soul for a planet, to anyone looking for a short read that will touch them and warm their hearts forever.

P.S.: To those gullable(sp?) enough to trust my advice, I must warn you: Be prepared for heartbreking facts that come up and hurt the charecters that you have grown to truly love, and rejoice will all your heart when something good happens to you. Though not truly to be considered comedy, I bet you will laugh at least inwardly at things such as The Nose Speeck that Homer delivers.

Humanity and Innocence in amber.......2006-05-09

This book is the equivalent of the Proustian madeleine...to read it is to recover a past long lost. Making the case for the mordant paradigm shift of US morals, ethics and literary tastes, this is the marker past which one can see the sad decline of the quality of art and life in the modern world. I cannot improve on the highly intelligent and sensitive overview given here by reviewer Big Orange "paxbear" and so will not review the book in detail. That it is one of only three Saroyan volumes still in print makes the case for the obsolesence of the clear heart and clear mind in today's mindlessly kinetic world. You can read this book in the time it would take you to go see MI 111 in a cineplex. Carpe diem. Read this instead.

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Me (A Modern Masters Book For Children)
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: The Crowell-Collier Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: B000B8XZFS

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Tracy's tiger
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: DoubleDay
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007E7CYQ

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Highly memorable

The Human Comedy
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000AS8E78

Product Description

From the dust jacket: The Human Comedy, Saroyan's first novel, is the story of an American family in wartime, and in particular of Homer Macauley, the fastest messenger in San Joaquin valley. With all the qualities of warmth, cheer, and humanity which have endeared Saroyan to his reading public, The Human Comedy abounds in unforgettable scenes. Homer running the Two-Twenty hurdles; little Ulysses imprisoned in the bear trap in Covington's store; old-time telegraph operator Willie Grogan, with a bottle in the desk drawer to fuzz the sharp reality of the everflowing messages of love and hope and pain and death; Spangler, with a love for the whole world and every living thing; Homer's older brother Marcus singing, as the troop train in which he sits hurtles away from home. Saroyan has done many things, but he has here done something which even his oldest friends scarcely dared to predict -- a wartime novel of the home front which succeeds in capturing, and which nowhere oversteps, the modesty of ordinary human beings. It is a very simple novel. It is a very great achievement.

Customer Reviews:

Highly memorable.......2005-11-04

My adult cousin gave me this book when I was about ten. We had not spent much time together, but she apparently had me figured out. I found the book spellbinding, although it was hard to say why. I recently reread it, and still appreciate its simplistic realism. Saroyan tells us of everyday dreams and anguish and triumph and tragedy, without an ounce of extremism or melodrama. "The Human Comedy" is perfectly real, and utterly memorable, as well as being a very well-written book. My recent reread was of a borrowed copy, and now I find myself tempted to buy it.

Love Here is My Hat and Other Short Romances

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Love Here is My Hat and Other Short Romances
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: Modern Age Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I0Z502

The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze

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The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HYY9JC

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MY NAME IS ARAM
SAROYAN WILLIAM
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HF7OU2

New Saroyan Reader: A Connoisseur's Anthology of the Writings of William Saroyan

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A nice collection of a very important American writer

New Saroyan Reader: A Connoisseur's Anthology of the Writings of William Saroyan
William Saroyan , and Brian Darwent
Manufacturer: Creative Arts Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

The only comprehensive Saroyan anthology The New Saroyan Reader presents fans of The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, The Time of Your Life, and The Human Comedy with a literary feast.

Customer Reviews:

A nice collection of a very important American writer.......1998-05-25

This nicely bound book will give you a highly balanced grasp of one of the most important American writers, William Saroyan - you will not only enjoy his short stories but also find out (more) about what this writer thought about his writing activities, how energetically he engaged himself with his work, his life, his death.

My only regret is that the book contains a rather large number of typos, which should have been avoided had it been the editor's wish to introduce this ingenious, productive writer to those who have not read many of his works; hence the four stars. Otherwise, it is joy to read, and I highly recommend it.

THE CAVE DWELLERS A PLAY IN TWO ACTS
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A fun philosophical play. Unique players.

THE CAVE DWELLERS A PLAY IN TWO ACTS
William Saroyan
Manufacturer: Samuel French Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0573606870

Product Description

A play, in two acts and ten scenes, happens within the space of a few days, on the stage of an abandoned theatre on the lower East Side of New York, in the midst of a slum clearing project.

Customer Reviews:

A fun philosophical play. Unique players. .......2007-03-03

William Soroyan has an extensive bibliography, authored numerous short stories, plays, novels, and much more. He won a Pulitizer Prized and refused it for "The Time of Your Life" 1939. He didn't think businessmen were qualified to judge art. He died in 1981 and was also known as a man of philosophical wisdom.

Cave Dwellers is metaphorical, fantasy, allegorical and philosophical. It was about love, hate, fear, friendships, living, laughing, crying, dreams, and failure, etc. But mostly, it is a feel-good story about strength, courage and love.

The setting is in a cold abandoned NY theatre set to be demolished and currently is inhabited for the past 9 months by several homeless people who classified themselves as "theatre people", therefore a restriction exists as to letting just anyone join their group. Afterall, they are not animals living in a cave. They have love to share.

The main characters are not named, simply known as The King, The Queen, The Duke and The Girl, The Father, Mother and The Bear (Gorky).

The scene opens with The Girl (not previously in the theatre) who has run into the abandoned theatre and encounters the Duke, an aging prizefighter who lost his crown 15 years ago. He accepts her. She joins the Queen, an older sick woman who has had her share of theatre performances, and The King, a clown in his heyday until he was put out. They are joined by a homeless Father, Mother, Baby and a performing bear named Gorky.

The prizefighter shadowboxes and is haunted by losing his title when he was afraid to kill his opponent with one blow & instead his opponent "killed" him with one blow.

On the cold night, The King, an ex-clown, loses his shoe in a bet with the Wreckers outside by trying to make them laugh. They don't need to laugh, so the King bets his shoe and tries to make them cry and fails.

The Duke steals milk for the baby. The Girl loves the Duke, etc. etc.
They beg, steal, survive and love. There isn't much in the line of plot and action, but it is what is said that sums up the play. It is fun and certainly unique!! .....MzRizz

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