THE HUMAN COMEDY

by William Saroyan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1943

Saroyan's uneven record places this legitimately in the class of Dark Horse-but here's where I'd put my money this month. It's much better than I expected of him; it has the simplicity he to have lon it has the perceptiveness and tenderness and humanity and wit and understanding of My Name Is Arun and bits of The Daring Young Man, He's lost the braggado, the brashness, except as it is a fleeting facet of one or other of his boy characters. He gives you the feel of the California town -- Ithaca, on the Santa Fa, and its Public Library and Presbyterian Church and High School and athletic field and market and main street -- and best of all, its homes. He takes you into the classroom, onto the track, into the playgrounds, the movies. He makes you feel the thoughts and emotions of the people in the simple houses. And -- in Homer Macquley he gives you American youth on the threshold, American youth growing out of homes where prayer and love and kindliness and understanding made boys like Marcus, who went off to fight, and Homer who stayed home to be -- at fourteen -- the man of the family, and lysses, who at four was interested in everything, and girls like Bess, who wanted a job, and mothers who hearts were big enough to know that death was not the end, not while there were other boys to mother...A profoundly moving book, which has those very which are making Happy Land a success, and without the obvious sentimentality and backneyed pattern. Perhaps its very simplicity will deceive readers. I think it is a great took.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1943

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1943

Categories: FICTION