My Name Is Aram by William Saroyan. Harcourt, Brace (1940), 220 pp.
This is Saroyan’s most popular short story collection. The book contains fourteen stories that run from six to twenty-two pages. All but one feature the adventures of Saroyan’s literary alter ego, Aram Garoghlanian, during his teen and pre-teen years. They are set in Fresno almost a century ago. Nearly all also include someone from Aram’s large Armenian-American family -- either a boy from his own generation (cousins Mourad, Arak, or Dikran) or a man born in the old country (uncles Jorgi, Melik, Gyko, or Khosrove). Aram’s parents seldom get a mention; neither do members of the opposite sex. Characters from other ethnic groups show up and are treated with appreciation. Figures from the “dominant culture” (the school principal, a shopkeeper, a presbyterian spinster) are subjects of bemusement, if not quite ridicule. Each story explores a theme of some sort -- the nature of boyhood, the qualities of small-town America, the treatment of minorities, the conflict between freedom and social constraint, the limitations of California dreaming. Saroyan writes in a simple, engaging style, and he generally keeps the tone light. But he can add punch when he wants to, for example in this reply from uncle Khosrove when Aram asks what has happened to Khosrove’s friend Khalil: “The Arab is dead. He died an orphan in an alien world, six thousand miles from home. He wanted to go home and die. He wanted to see his sons again. He wanted to talk to them again. He wanted to smell them. He wanted to hear them breathing. He had no money. He used to think about them all the time. Now he is dead. Now go away. I love you.” (p. 207) Mostly, though, the seriousness of My Name Is Aram depends on the attitude of the reader. Whatever that may be, the book will probably be an easy one to like.
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