Episode Notes Questions and Comments can be sent to chris@foreversaroyan.com Next episode - The Living and The Dead keywords The Conference Press William Saroyan History literature publishing 1930s UCLA short stories collection magazine Forever Saroyan Presents-The Living and the Dead Wed, Oct 12, 2022 10:45AM • 16:45 SUMMARY KEYWORDS story, grandmother, writer, speak, world, point, poet, relationship, ryan, shakespeare, essence, noted, poetry, reader, write, people, garcia, drinker, presents, dialogue SPEAKERS Christopher Garcia Christopher Garcia Welcome to William Saroyan Presents – Three Times Three, with your host, Christopher J. Garcia. This episode, we're looking at “The Living and The Dead.” The introduction to “The Living and The Dead” takes the form of a conversation between the reader and the writer. And in fact, it opens with the reader speaking Reader - What about this story, any good? Writer, not bad, not good. The stuff on drinking is all right, some mournful comedy Saroyan often presents himself as able to distance himself from his actual prose. In essence, he can give a proper view to a work that sometimes in a way other authors can’t do to their own work at all. Usually, he sees critics and many readers as unable to understand and properly appreciate or depreciate his own work. The back and forth here looks at how prose is influenced both by the writers desire to write and also the role that the reader plays within the feedback loop, though not particularly deeply. That sort of reader theory wouldn't be popular until the 1970s. But there is one small exchange that I think is really important. Reader, what are the facts about this story? Anything interesting? Writer, nothing interesting. The story was written at 348 Karl Street in San Francisco sometime during 1934. I think the weather was fair at the time. This actually ties in very deeply with one of William Saoyan's longest running traditions, and that is the naming and placing of his creations. In the previous story, we looked at, “The Question,” he very pointedly noted the date it was created. The same thing could be said of “The Man with the Heart in the Highlands,” as he noted it was two days prior to him having to go to the hospital for the appendectomy. Saroyan's connections to time and place are very significant, and often are an aside within a larger piece. This particularly shows through his paintings. Nearly all of his paintings have, at the bottom, the signature ‘William Saroyan’, any title for the piece, followed by the date and where it was created. While some may leave off one aspect or the other, usually either the title or sometimes the place, very rarely is the date not mentioned. In essence, I believe Saroyan is trying to stamp every work that he creates as being of a specific time and a specific place, and in this story that actually reflects on not only the story, but on how we should read the story. “The Living and The Dead” isn’t exactly an action-packed tale. What it is is a consideration of a character. It is a look at a San Franciscan very much like Saroyan himself. It's a look at youth, and often how youth will sometimes take an either misguided, or perhaps not fully considered, view of the world. He's skeptical of socialism, for example, which at that point was taking hold among younger Americans, particularly of the working class. But he's also presenting a view of the drinker. Saroyan’s relationship with alcohol is relatively well documented. He was a frequent drinker, and it did, at times impede his relationships, both professional and personal. At other times, it also helped foster those relationships. Here we see a character Pete, who is a gung ho socialist trying to recruit Saroyan. Saroyan himself talks about having been approached a number of times by socialist causes. And it of course, as noted in the introduction, he believed that the organization International Workers organization was one of the saddest aspects of modern life and that he preferred simple play. In essence, he is saying that himself, or the character that more than likely represents him, as a drinker is choosing the lesser of two evils. There are some wonderful conversations between the grandmother and the grandson, our main character. And the two of them are very different in their approaches to the world in particular. Saroyan's grandmother is not necessarily able to directly communicate in a form that is easily moldable into a clear and concise point of view for the main character. Here's an interesting little point that I think shows the level of disconnect between the worldviews Melik, said my grandmother. My husband, Melik. If he was sober, he spoke quietly, his voice rich and deep and gentle. And if he was drunk, he roared like a lion and you'd think God in Heaven was crying lamentations and oaths upon the tribes of the earth. No other man have I heard could speak in this way ...
