Slack-Wire Miracles

My Name is ARAM--William Saroyan--Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

Aram (rhymes with a bomb) Garoghlanian (pronounced "Gar, pause, oghlan, slight pause, ian") is the narrator, for William Saroyan, of 14 semi-autobiographical semi-stories of an Armenian childhood in Fresno, Calif. They are, in their modest way, the best writing William Saroyan has done. But like all Saroyan's work, they are likable or loathsome, depending on the reader's taste.

Aram has as many eccentric uncles as Gracie Allen. Each of them is worth a Saroyan comic-tear or two. Uncle Melik "was just about the worst farmer that ever lived." On his godforsaken desert farm, he set out hundreds of pomegranate trees, poured all his love and money into them, lost both trees and land. Once he looked a horned toad straight in the eye. Then:

"Put the little creature down, he said. Let us not be cruel to the innocent creations of Almighty God. If it is not poison and grows no larger than a mouse and does not travel in great numbers and has no memory to speak of, let the timid little thing return to the earth. . .

"Gently now, my uncle said. Let no harm come to this strange dweller on my land."

Uncle Gyko "was getting all his dope free from the theosophy-philosophy-astrology-and-miscellaneous shelf at the Public Library." He profoundly mistrusted Aram's mentor, Lionel Strongfort. But Strongfort and Yoga together only got Aram a bad last place in the 50-yard dash. So Gyko became again "one of the boys around town, drinking, staying up all hours, and following the women."

Uncle Khosrove was a fierce and sorrowful man with the biggest mustache in the San Joaquin Valley. He used to sit in silence by the hour with his heartbroken little friend, a "poor and burning Arab." When the Arab died Khosrove "stood in the parlor with his hat on his head and said, 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."

Such is the flavor of My Name is Aram. Effortless, delicate and slightly boozy, the little tales carry a sense of comic-poetic anarchy whose only name is Saroyan. For those who get the hang of it, there are several solid miracles of literary slack-wire walking. There is less of the brassiness and tinhorn rhetoric with which he usually destroys his effects. There is more self-effacing attention to business than usual. Saroyan will always be a question of taste; but another book or two, and he may also be one of the best and most original writers alive.

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