The Human Comedy by William Saroyan

I was talking to a guy at school, and he mentioned The Human Comedy as his favorite book of all time, so I decided to check it out. Honestly, though, I was not completely impressed. It was a sweet book, but it was a tad simplistic. The simplicity wasn't entirely a detractor, for it rendered the book devoid of any objectionable content, but I think its view of the world was somehow too small to present an accurate depiction of universal truths.

For The Human Comedy tried very hard to be a philosophical book. Characters spontaneously recite speeches of truisms, spouting that's-the-way-life-is phrases. The truisms don't seem to be particularly true, though. The prevailing theme of the book is a universalizing one that reiterates a mantra of brotherhood and fraternity among all men, taking the concept so far as "we all are everyone else." It's a slightly relative view, and it transfers the blame of wrongdoers indeterminably to the next person and the next, until no one is to blame for anything. And the plot involves an implicit trust between strangers that feels fairly rash.

Nevertheless, I could appreciate the characters. My favorite was perhaps Mr. Spangler, a telegram man whose policy of polite, universal kindness saves him, and a few others, from harm. Others were enjoyable as well- the older brother in the army, the middle brother supporting the family and learning how life is, the pleasant sister, and the youngest brother who is discovering joy as it comes to him. The mother did a lot of philosophizing (it reminded me, for some reason, of that scene in The Importance of Being Earnest in which Algy and Jack banter about the former's invented truism), and she talked to her dead husband, so I did not like her as much.

I am not sure why this book was that guy's favorite. Nothing really made it stand out; nothing in it seemed particularly extraordinary. Who knows.