The Human Comedy

Rating:
Summary: A capsule of life in a small community during World War II.
Review: This book is an episodic novel centered on the Macauley family in the town of Ithaca, California, in the San Joaquin Valley in the early 1940s (Saroyan [1908-1981] was born in Fresno, California, and much of what he describes of the life of Ithaca relates to Fresno). The central characters are the fourteen-year-old Homer Macauley, who is working as a telegraph messenger, and his four-year-old brother Ulysses (note the names of Homer, Ulysses, and Ithaca!). Through them we see the people and the vitality of this small community and the impact of World War II. The war is having a deep effect on Homer because he finds himself acting as a "Messenger of Death" since he has to deliver telegrams to family members from the Government informing them of the death of a loved one. This book appeared in 1943 in the middle of the war and, in my opinion, much of its popularity is due to the comfort it gave to many families throughout the U.S. who had family members in the armed forces overseas. Families of widely different backgrounds and heritages as well as entire communities were holding together in this time of strain and concern just as Ithaca was doing. [One minor character in the book is Big Chris, who appears a couple of times in the book, always acting as a guide or "savior." Was Saroyan trying to say here that He is always there in times of need? Or, am I reading too much into the symbolism?] This was a required novel in one of my English classes when I was a kid. And, I discover that it is still a required text more than thirty years later!

Rating:
Summary: LIKED BUT DIDN'T LOVE
Review: When I started reading this book I really wanted to love it. However, I was a little dissappointed by the language which as others has said is at a third grade level. Also, the characters were a little fake, but its literature and thats ok. That being said, this book was an excellent story with many morals behind it and a good deal of metaphor. The best chapters in the story were those that could be read as a short story within the book itself, such as the tale about Mr. Ara's store. Overall the story was very good, but not quite excellent either. the morals and style of life portrayed in the book make it worth the time to read it however.