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Armenian Action
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March 1997
Vol. 18, No. 3 (57)
Supplement to The Collegian
Conference Focuses on Saroyan at 15
By Michael Kloster
English Department, UC Berkeley
On November 15th an international conference "Saroyan
Plus Fifteen" was held on the University of California, Berkeley campus to commemorate the work and
life of William Saroyan-. The gathering was jointly sponsored by the
newly established William Saroyan
Chair of Armenian Studies, the
English Department, the Center for
Slavic and East European Studies,
International and Area Studies, the
UC Berkeley Armenian Alumni,
and the UC Berkeley Armenian
Students Association. The event
was also supported by the William
Saroyan Foundation.
The symposium was organized and directed by Dickran
Kouymjian, William Saroyan Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at UC Berkeley to complement
the course on Saroyan he is teaching in the English Department. Dr.
Kouymjian is holder of the Haig
and Isabel Berberian Endowed
Chair of Armenian Studies at California State University in Fresno
and author of numerous articles on
Saroyan and the editor of two volumes of previously unpublished
plays: An Armenian Trilogy (1986)
and Warsaw Visitor (1991).
In officially opening the
conference. Dean Richard
Buxbaum of International and Area
Studies referred to his first encounter with William Saroyan as a young
boy in Germany recalling from
memory a passage from the story
"The Fifty Year Dash" from My
Names Is Aram , in which Aram
feels as though "never before has
any living man moved so swiftly."
until he opened his eyes and realizes that "Three boys were ahead of
me and going away." Dean
Buxbaum stressed the importance
of Saroyan's ability to reach humankind through diverse manners
of expression.
The all day conference
was divided up into one morning
and two afternoon sessions followed by a roundtable discussion.
The first panel, "William Saroyan
after Fifteen," chaired by Professor
Kouymjian, featured individuals
who had an intimate knowledge of
Saroyan as a person, as a writer, or
both. First to reminisce was San
Francisco writer Herbert Gold, a
self-described "sometimes professor," and author of a dozen novels
(including She Took My Arms As If
She Loved Me, which will appear
next year), was a friend of Saroyan
the last twenty years of his life. He
recounted a twenty year friendship
"from their meeting at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to
double dates and all-night parties."
He summed up their relationship
succinctly: "The man had a soul
and it was a privilege to lurk around
with it."
Participants in the Saroyan Conference, from the left: Herbert Gold
of San Francisco, Jon Whitmore of the University of Iowa, Aram
Kevorkian of Paris, Richard Buxbaum, Dean of International and
Area Studies UC Berkeley, Michael Kloster of Berkeley, John Leggett
or Napa, Dickran Kouymjian, Barry Gifford of Berkeley, Harry
Keyishian of Fairleigh Dickinson University, David Calonne of
Andrews College, Micah Jendian of San Diego State.
Next was Aram
Kevorkian, Saroyan's longtime
friend and Paris lawyer, who provided touching stories of his relationship with Saroyan including an
emotional and tender remembrance
of winter in Paris when Saroyan
discussed his feelings about Christmas and the loss of his father and
related them back to a short play in
the 1942 collection Razzle Dazzle.
Taking a scholarly turn Professor
John Whitmore, Provost and pro
fessor of Theater Arts at the University of Iowa and author of William Saroyan: A Research and Production Sourcebook, discussed a
lost and legendary late Saroyan
work - Adios Muchachos. Saroyan
wrote the memoir —which he referred to as "this piece of writing,
this history, this rhapsody of life,
this dirge, this novel, this unidentified flying object"—over a 100 day
period in 1980. The huge manuscript (which is over 335,000
words), zig-zags among rambling
descriptions of day-to-day life, colorful pictures of fascinating people,
and descriptions of his personal
health and state of mind, during the
filial months of his fight with terminal prostrate cancer. The discussion of this lost manuscript
prompted Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
famous San Francisco poet and
publisher, founder of City Lights
Books, who was present throughout the conference, to remark that
Saroyan was the first American
author he read as a child. He expressed interest in publishing any
ofthe diverse unpublished and unknown works of Saroyan and inquired about the availability of such
manuscripts.
Following lunch, the second panel, "William Saroyan, the
Critics, Karl Jung, and the Immigrant Experience," was chaired by
Bonnie Hardwick of UC Berkeley's
Bancroft Library. Ms. Hardwick
wasresponsible for cataloguing the
William Saroyan archives, a labor
of six years, and is the editor ofthe
307 page guide the William Saroyan
Papers 1926-1981. First to speak
was John Leggett, author of a recently completed biography waiting publication: William Saroyan:
The Daring Young Man. Leggett
extensively discussed Saroyan's
war with the critics, shedding light
on an author considered by many
See Saroyan, Page 4
"Refuge" Showcases Artifacts of Fresno's Armenian Heritage
By Jacqueline Arikian
Hidden in the Special
Collections section of the Henry
Madden Library at Fresno State,
exists a display of Armenians in
America: Fresno as "Refuge." It is
in the side room ofthe fourth floor
where one can walk through Little
Armenia and grasp a taste of Armenian life.
In this exhibit lies the stories of those who first set foot in the
agricultural area of Fresno. Displayed books tell the story of Hagop
Seropian and his brothers who came
to Fresno in 1881 and started a
grocery business. Shortly after their
arrival, they wrote letters to their
families in Armenia and in 1883,
forty-five families arrived from
Marsovan to begin a new life in
Fresno, California.
Other books tell the story
of William Saroyan, a famous Armenian writer to one and all. On
display are pictures of the author
and copies of some of the beoks
which he has written.
In addition to all the stories, one can also see the lyrics and
musical notations of old Armenian
folk songs. These songs were
passed down through generations
and were sung as a means of entertainment.
In this display also lies the
core importance of Armenian life:
the church. Pictures and manuscripts express the religious customs and beliefs of the Armenian
people.
In this presentation, one
can also see the detail of illuminated manuscripts, the reproduction of carved wooden crosses, hand
made table decors created through
needlework, and slippers that were
once used in public bath houses.
This wonderful display of
Armenian life was put together
through the help of Dr. Dickran
Kouymjian, Dr. Isabel Kaprielian,
Meline and Sarkis Kalfayan,
Barlow Der Mugrdechian, and the
Special Collections
department of Fresno
State.
The showcase
was inspired by a display which can be
experienced at the
Chinatown Art and
Education Art Gallery. It is there that
one may see photos
of the impressive
work of Lawrence
Cone (Condragian),
the first Armenian
architect in Fresno.
This display was essentially the inspiration for the Armenian showcase at Fresno State.
"It was a nice tie-in with what we
wanted to do," says Tammy Lau,
one of the coordinators at the special collections department.
This display is unique in
the sense that it truly captures a
holistic view and representation of
Armenian life, what it once was,
and in similar ways, still is. It also
takes one back into time, guiding
one through the history of a people
who struggled to create a new life
for themselves in the Little Armenia of Fresno.
It was because of Rueben
Minassian, the first Armenian visitor to the San Joaquin Valley, and
Melkon Markarian and Stephen
Shahamirian, the first Armenian
settlers in the Valley, that Armenians today have residence in
Fresno and the surrounding valleys.
Not a day goes by in this
Valley and in the city of Fresno,
that one does not run into an Armenian. It is then that one begins to
learn the history of each others'
See Display, Page 6