"William Saroyan, 1908-1981" is a remembrance of the the author of the same name who had died the previous year. It was included in the Proceedings of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1982, having been delivered on Vonnegut's behalf by John Updike at the Institute Dinner Meeting on November 10, 1982.
Summary[]
William Saroyan, 1970s
Although he knew Saroyan only through his work, Vonnegut predicts that his reputation will endure because he wrote good plays, which are in such short supply. With Somerset Maugham, he was one of only two people in Vonnegut's own time who could write plays and stories equally well. Unlike Maugham, who wished to be seen as "a cultivated gentleman", Saroyan wanted to be perceived as "a gifted primitive". Neither was faking. Like many Armenians, he told stories often and well, filled with an "unflagging, boisterous love of life", perhaps a response to the genocide against his people by the Turks earlier in the century. A scene in My Name is Aram in which a stolen white horse first seen on a dark night become the property of two Armenian boys in California seems to Vonnegut to be a tale of life overcoming death. Future generations of actors and Armenians will continue to adore Saroyan for a long time.[1]
- ↑ "William Saroyan, 1908-1981", Proceedings of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1982, 2nd series, no. 33, pg. 86.