William Saroyan (1908—1981) first appeared on the literary scene of the the United States in the mid-thirties. Highly original short stories made him one of the most talked-about writers in America.
These were followed by plays and short stories that were even more enthusiastically received.
Saroyan’s stories are richly funny and humane. He is a very honest writer. He writes clearly, without pose, about what can happen to people — and does so often happen, both accidentally and purposefully. Saroyan has a real love and compassion for common people, and a deep understanding of their dignity. He always makes his reader sympathize with them and share in their sufferings.
Saroyan had little schooling, but he was a keen observer of life, and almost all the episodes described in his works are taken either from his own life or from the life of the people who came in touch with him. Saroyan likes his characters, a rare thing in modern fiction, and he persuades his reader to accept them — and in some way to accept the comic and pathetic nature in us all.
William Saroyan published more than thirty books and plays. His best-known novel is The Human Comedy. Among his most popular works are The Adventures of Wesley Jackson, Rock Wagram, The Laughing Matter, Boys and Girls Together, and One Day in the Afternoon of the World.
Task 1. Read the words and word combinations and guess their meaning. Pay attention to the suffixes.
-ness: aware — awareness; an awareness that here was a truly original mind.
-en: threat — threaten; a brilliant man came and threatened the principal.
-ly: frequent — frequently; she was frequently seen by students; honest — honestly; he was glad to say honestly; clear — clearly; he recalled quite clearly; safe — safely; the boy got out of the room safely.
Cultural Note:
Stonehenge - group of large, tall stones arranged in circles which stand on Salisbury Plain, South England. They were put there in pre-historic times (about 2500-1500 BC), perhaps as a religious sign or perhaps as a way to study the sun, moon, and stars. Stonehenge is a popular tourist attraction.
Read the story Out of Order and answer the question:
• What was the cause of the conflict between William Saroyan and the teacher?
Longfellow High was not strictly speaking a high school at all. It was the seventh and eight grades of a grammar school, and its full name was Longfellow Junior High School.
It was in Ancient History that I first astonished my class into an awareness that here was a truly original mind. It happened that this was the first class of the very first day. The teacher was a woman of forty or so. She smoked cigarettes, laughed loudly with other teachers during the lunch hour, and had frequently been seen by the students running suddenly, pushing, and acting gay. She was called Miss Shenstone by the students and Harriet or Harry by the other teachers. Ancient-history books were distributed to the class, and Miss Shenstone asked us to turn to page 192 for the first lesson.
I remarked that it would seem more in order to turn to page one for the first lesson.
I was asked my name, whereupon1 was only too glad to say honestly, "William Saroyan."
"Well, William Saroyan," Miss Shenstone said, "I might say, Mister William Saroyan, just shut up and let me do the teaching of Ancient History in this class."
Quite a blow.2
On page 192, I recall quite clearly, was a photograph of two rather common-looking stones which Miss Shenstone said were called Stonehenge. She then said that these stones were twenty thousand years old.
It was at this point that my school of thought and behaviour was started.
"How do you know?" I said.
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1 whereupon — ïîñëå ÷åãî
2 blow — çä.: yäap
This was a fresh twist1 to the old school: the school of thought in which the teachers asked the questions and students tried to answer them.
The entire class expressed approval of the new school. What happened might be accurately described as a demonstration. The truth of the matter is that neither Miss Shenstone, or Harry (as she enjoyed being called), nor Mr. Monsoon himself, the principal2, had anything like a satisfactory answer to any legitimate3 question of this sort, for they (and all the other teachers) had always accepted what they had found in the textbooks.
Instead of trying to answer the question, Miss Shenstone compelled4 me to demonstrate the behaviour of the new school. That is, she compelled me to run. She flung5 herself at me with such speed that I was hardly able to get away. For half a moment she clung to my homeknit sweater, and damaged it before I got away. Instead of remaining in one’s seat in a crisis, it was better to get up and go. The chase6 was an exciting one, but I got out of the room safely. Five minutes later, believing that the woman had calmed down, I opened the door to step in and return to my seat, but again she flung herself at me, and again I got away.
Rather than wait for the consequences, I decided to present my case to Mr. Monsoon himself, but when I did so, I was amazed to find that his sympathies were with Miss Shenstone and that he looked upon me with loathing7.
"She said the rocks were twenty thousand years old," I said. "All I said was, ‘How do you know?’ I didn’t mean they weren’t that old. I meant that maybe they were older, maybe thirty thousand years old. How old is the earth? Several million years old, isn’t? If the book can say the rocks are twenty thousand years old, somebody ought to be able to say how the book got that figure. I came here to learn. I don’t expect to be punished because I want to learn."
"Your name again, please?" Mr. Monsoon said.
"William Saroyan," I said as humbly8 as possible, although I must confess9 it was not easy to do.
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1 twist — ïîâîðîò
2 principal — çä.: äèðåêòîð øêîëû
3 legitimate — çàêîííûé,
4 to compel — çàñòàâèòü, âûíóäèòü
5 to fling (flung, flung) — êèäàòüñÿ, áðîñàòüñÿ
6 chase — ïîãîíÿ
7 loathing — îòâðàùåíèå
8 humbly — ñìèðåííî, ïîêîðíî
9 to confess — ïðèçíàâàòü, ïðèçíàòü
"You are?" Mr. Monsoon said.
"Eleven," I said.
"No. I don’t mean that."
"One hundred and three pounds."
"No, no. The name, I’m thinking of." "And nationality," Mr. Monsoon said. "Armenian," I said proudly.
"Just as I thought," the principal said.
"Just as you thought what?"
"Nobody but an Armenian would have asked a question like that."
"How do you know?" I said, giving the new school another whirl10.
"Nobody did," the principal said. "Does that answer your question?"
"Only partly," I said. "How do you know somebody else would not have asked it if I hadn’t?"
"In all the years that I have been connected with the public school system of California," Mr. Monsoon said, "no one has ever asked such a question."
"Yes," I said quickly, "and in all the years before Newton wanted to know what made the apple fall, nobody wanted to know what made it fall."
I was brilliant. It’s not my fault nobody else was.
Mr. Monsoon chose not to continue the discussion. He just sat and looked at his shoes.
"How about that?" I said.
"Well," he said rather wearily11". "I must give you a thrashing12. "How about that?"
"For what?" I said.
I got to my feet, watching the stenographer, whose desk was beside the door. This was a rather pretty girl, and I hoped to make a favourable impression on her, although I can’t imagine what I expected to come of it."
"Miss Slifo," Mr. Monsoon said, but that was all I needed to hear, and before Miss Slifo was able to block my way, I was at the door, out of the room, and just about halfway across the school grounds.
Once again, the behaviour of the new school had been tested and found true. I went home and found my Uncle Aleksander who was studying law at the University of Southern California, on a visit at our house, drinking coffee. I told him the story. He invited me into his car and we took off for Longfellow High School.
"That’s the story; just as you’ve told it to me?" he said as we rode.
"That’s exactly how it happened."
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10 whirl — ïîâîðîò
11 wearily — óòîìëåííî, ïîòåðÿâ òåðïåíèå
12 thrashing — ïàëî÷íûå óäàðû, âçáó÷êà
"All right," my Uncle Aleksander said. "You wait in the car."
I don’t know what my Uncle Aleksander and Mr. Monsoon said to one another, but after a few minutes Miss Slifo came out to the car and said, "Your uncle and Mr. Monsoon and Miss Shenstone would like to see you in the office."
I went in and my uncle said, "There are men who know how to determine the approximate age of different things in the world and on the earth. Who these men are and how they determine these things, Mr. Monsoon does not know, and neither does Miss Shenstone. Miss Shenstone has promised to look into the matter. On your part, you may ask any questions you like, but in a more co-operative and polite tone of voice." He turned to the principal. "Is that in accordance with1 our understanding?"
"Quite," the principal said.
"It was with admiration that Mr. Monsoon remarked that only an Armenian would have asked a question like that," my Uncle Aleksander went on. "Is that correct, Mr. Monsoon?"
"It is," Mr. Monsoon said, "in a city with a population of ten or three thousand of them, I could hardly —"
"With admiration, then," my Uncle Aleksander said. He turned to me.
"You will spend the rest of this day away from school, but tomorrow you will return to classes as though nothing had happened."
"Is that also in accordance with our understanding?" he asked the principal.
"I was wondering if he might not be transferred2 to another school," the principal said, but my uncle said quickly, "He lives in this district. His friends come to this school. I shall be interested in his progress."
"We all shall," the principal said.
I could not have been more ill at ease3, or more angry at my uncle. The very thing I had always despised4 had just taken place, that is to say, a brilliant man had come to my defence, a circumstance I could hardly be expected to enjoy.
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1 in accordance with — â ñîîòâåòñòâèè ñ
2 to transfer — ïåðåâîäèòü, ïåðåõîäèòü
3 ill at ease — íå ïî ñåáå
4 to despise — ïðåçèðàòü
A brilliant man, who happened to be my mother’s younger brother, has stepped in among the great figures of the school, belittled5 and threatened them; and they, instead of fighting back, had let him get away with it. Well, I didn’t want him to get away with it.
The following day I presented myself to Mr. Monsoon, who, when he saw me, appeared to want to close his eyes and to go to sleep.
"I’ve come to apologize," I said. "I don’t want any special privileges."
"Just ask your questions in a polite tone of voice," the man said. "You may go now."
He refused to open his eyes.
I went straight to the ancient-history class, where I found Miss Shenstone at her desk.
"I'm sorry about the trouble I made," I said. "I won’t do it again."
For a moment I thought she was about to fling herself at me again, but without looking up from her work, she said very dryly, "They have a way of determining such things. You may go now."
I felt sure the principal and the teacher would one day remember how wonderfully I behaved in this unfortunate affair, but as I’ve said, they didn’t, and so I have had to.
Miss Shenstone taught at Longfellow only another four days. A series of substitute teachers6 took over the teaching of the ancient-history class, but now the new school was in full operation throughout Longfellow High, and the substitutes were always eager to finish out a day or a week and be gone forever.
Mr. Monsoon, too, left the school and was succeeded by a man who tried the method of brute7 force at first, thrashing as many as three dozen boys a day, and then he tried the method of taking the worst boys into his confidence8, going for walks with them through the schoolgrounds, being friendly and so on; but neither of these methods worked, and after the first semester, the man accepted a post at a small country school with only forty or fifty students.
As for myself, I transferred to another school in order to learn typing.
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5 to belittle — ïðèíèæàòü
6 substitute teacher — çàìåíÿþùèé ó÷èòåëü
7 brute — ãðóáûé
8 to take into one’s confidence — äîâåðèòü (êîìó-òî) ñâîè òàéíû
Task 2.Read the sentences and translate them. Pay attention to the use of the modal verbs.
1 What happened might be accurately described as a demonstration.
2 "Somebody ought to be able to say how the book got that figure."
3 "I might say, just shut up and let me do the teaching of Ancient History in this class."
4 "William Saroyan," I said as humbly as possible, although I must confess it was not easy to do.
Task 3.Translate the sentences. Pay attention to the use of the grammar forms in bold.
1 I remarked that it would have seemed more in order to turn to page one for the first lesson.
2 "Nobody but an Armenian would have asked a question like that."
3 "How do you know somebody else would not have asked it if I hadn’t?"
4 Tomorrow you will return to classes as though nothing had happened."
Task 4.Read and translate:
1 I first astonished my class into an awareness that here was a truly original mind.
2 Rather than wait for the consequences, I decided to present my case to Mr. Monsoon himself, but when I did so, I was amazed to find that his sympathies were with Miss Shenstone and that he looked upon me with loathing.
3 I could not have been more ill at ease, or more angry at my uncle.
4 A brilliant man had come to my defence, a circumstance I could hardly be expected to enjoy.
5 The following day I presented myself to Mr. Monsoon.
6 Now the new school was in full operation, and the substitutes were always eager to finish out a day or a week and be gone forever.
7 He first tried the method of brute force, and then he tried the method of taking the worst boys into his confidence, going for walks with them, being friendly and so on.
Task 5.Answer the questions:br
1 What made the teacher of Ancient History angry when her first lesson of the school year began?
2 Did the class approve of Saroyan’s curiosity and his eagerness to find out the accuracy of the teacher’s words? How did they?
3 What did William Saroyan mean by "the old school of thought?"
4 In what way did the teacher behave?
5 Did Saroyan hope to find understanding and sympathy in Mr. Monsoon, the principal? What didn’t he expect?
6 How did William escape punishment?
7 How did the conflict end?
8 What were William’s arguments in support of his position?
9 Why did William feel ill at ease and angry with his uncle?
