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 Adam
Bagdasarian
I read My Name Is Aram,
by William Saroyan, when I was fourteen-years-old. From
the first page of the first short story, the book was
a revelation. The simplicity of the language, the warmth
and humor of the narrator's voice dissolved the usual
wall between writer and reader and made me feel a part
of the stories I was reading. Before then, many of the
books I had to read in school had a soul-deadening formality
of the language that was downright exhausting. I knew
that there were human beings with human feelings and
frailties and conflicts in there somewhere, but I had
to hack my way through so much dry language that I hardly
cared once I got there. My Name Is Aram, on the
other hand, seemed to welcome me right away.
The most important thing about the book was that it
made writing (and reading) seem less a rigid intellectual
pursuit, than an emotional journey that any man or boy
might take into his own heart and spirit. In other words,
it helped me discover the kind of writer that I wanted
to be-someone who, regardless of the subject matter,
made his readers feel as though they had found a good
companion.
When I was a little older, my favorite books included
The Sun Also Rises, Catcher in the Rye, and The
Great Gatsby. But the first and greatest inspiration
was My Name Is Aram.
Sincerely,
Adam Bagdasarian
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