Word: saroyaned
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...similarity between The Laughing Matter and the earlier Saroyan novels is to be expected. So long as an author has a philosophy of life, and so long as this philosophy dominates his writing, this is natural and, to a certain extent, welcome...
...William Saroyan's starting place is well known. It was clearly expressed in a short story he wrote sometime before 1940: "Okay, baby, this is the world," he wrote, "It's lousy, but it's the only thing there is, so you might just as well take it easy and enjoy...
...This went along quite well until he hit a book in 1951 called Rock Wagram. Something happened here. Saroyan discovered that this pattern was unacceptable. To love, he discovered, one must have someone to love, and despite the fact that he wanted his characters to love each other for the good in them, he found that the senseless world often exerted pressures on certain individuals which made them unacceptable objects of this love...
This is the side of Saroyan that brings on his failure. Philosophically, he has reached a dead end. The Laughing Matter ends with a suicide, a shooting, and a fatal automobile accident. The book builds up to a point of tension, but Saroyan's obsession with this "bad world" makes the plot resolution completely unsatisfying...
...bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed," is noted in every speech and action of his main character. And the pointless stories like "Did you ever fall in love with a 39 pound midget," are typical for the free-swinging, spontancously-humerous, Saroyan style...