Evening star., 1938-12-04
REVIEWER APPROVES SAROYAN
Succbs Interpreter of Current Period After Join
Chest Humping School-Max Miller Tells Old Tale
Beautifully Lauds Monarchy
By Mary.Carter Roberts.

BY Mary.Carfer Roberts.
THE TROUBLE WITH TIGERS
BY William Saroyan. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & Co.
The reviewer has for a long time
sat discontentedly on the fence in
Iaffaire Saroyan. She could not
make up her mind to snub that
daring young man on the flying
trapeze, whose blithe ingeniousness
has been so engaging; neither could
she quite bring herself to join the
chest humping school of her crit
ical colleagues in their volta writer
volta style encomiums.
1t has seemed to her that Mr..
Saroyan~ (the chest-thumperS gen.
orally call him good old Bill) Is
an interesting original who, for the
reason that he has followed his own
hand and obviously does not care a
morsel for those authorities who
decree that a good short story is
such -and-such, deserved watching.
1t is a lock-step age, and our
writer's are doing all they can to
make it SO; curiously, the very
ones who cry out most loudly
against the RECOMMENDATION OF the
Fascist countries abroad are most
determined to bring about mental
uniformity in our own land, and
the reviewer has no sympathy with
them. She has legitimate reason
for saying so, too, for in the main
they are very bad at their trade
But the very same critical scrurle
which, in the case of these fren-
Zied reformers, has caused her to
base adverse comments on man
ner rather than on content, has
made her hesitate to praise an
author simply because his con-
tent is n-conformist. Writing
needs only to be done well. So
Mr.. Saroyan has seemed to her a
case of suspended judgment be-
cause, with undoubted flashes of vir-
tuosity he still has put down on
paper an unconScionable deal OF
pure tripe.
But now, with his present volume,
the reviewer decides to hold her ver-
dict no longer. She is pro-Saroyan.
It seems to her that this young man
is speaking with the authentic voice
though perhaps pitched a bit
shrilly) of his day and age. The
fact that he is uttering solo
and is not one of the dreary chorus
does not make him less of a true
interpreter, for the chorus today
has lost touch with the people whom
1t imagines itself interpreting. 1t
is singing its own song, and the
theme of that song is There seems
to be a. pretty good market just
now for socio- -economico- -politico-
proletario books-We hope!"
Mr.. Saroyan himself is not blind
to the social questions which are,
anyway, plainly evident to any mod
erately active intelligence. He, how
ever, refuses to accept them as the
whole of life. He assimilates them,
he takes them in his stride, he
blends them into his artists pic
ture of the world. And that, in the
reviewers opinion, is the attitude
of the great body of our people,
and she holds that those writer's
who pound duly along at the So
called social theme in the hyster-
ically limited terms of latter-day
"Uncle Toms Cabin" are giving their
readers stones instead of bread. or
course they are drawing their roy
alties. Well, bless their dear little
social al-minded hearts!
Mr.. Saroyan in his present volume
of stories shows himself to have
mastered the spirit of this depres-
sion age in America 1t is not
particularly noble spirit, nor par
ticularly brave nor intelligent. But
1t is humorous, dogged and philo-
sophical. 1t is set down in Mr..
Saroyan's book in terms of Holly
wood, of Roosevelt, of the radio, Of
this day, age and minute. But it
bears a. quaint recognizable resem-
blance to the spirit of the wagon
pioneers, and of Thomas Jefferson,
and of '76, and of Daniel Boone-yes,
even Danl. 1t is the spirit Of the
individual man, not esteeming him.
self as much of a fellow, but still
holding on-a poor thing, but his
own. Well that is the traditional
spirit of our democratic land! How
clearly this young Armenian has un-
derstood us, to be sure.
Mr.. Saroyan implies this chiefly
by his style, which is as it should be,
of course; for the very essence of
that humorous philosophical men,
tality is that it does not allow its
holders to talk about it. There is
one story in the book in which the
thing is set out with, to the re-
viewers mind, complete perfection.
That is the tale called "It's Not as
If We Don't Appreciate Your Kind
ness" That is a masterpiece and
probably will not make either the
OBrien or the Hansen volumes next
year. (Although it might, for by
now one Saroyan to best" col
lection has become practically OBJ
ligatory-for some reason or other
understood only by anthologers-
and, chance being what it is, good
one could be drawn, too)
In the main, however, there is not
much choice between the stories in