Resumo de The Human Comedy - William Saroyan

If the sun can laugh and cry, sing a pleasant tune, tell you a bedtime story, if the sun can sit in the middle of your chest and wrap its gentle arms around your heart, it would very much be like the writing of William Saroyan. The Human Comedy, probably Saroyan's most famous work, is touching, inspiring, and thought provoking. It is a novel set in Ithica, California in 1942, revealed in a series of vignettes. I say this because each little chapter is a golden nugget that can stand on its own.
Though the novel pulsates with simplicity and innocence, the author tackles grander themes. Like the loss of innocence, in individuals and people as a whole; the suppression of the poor; morals and ethics; even racisim. Homer Macauley, still a teenager, a bicycle messenger for a telegraph company, loses his innocence as he learns about people, the real world, life and death. His younger brother, Ulysses, is the epitome of innocence and views the world around him in wonder.
Saroyan presents a slice of small town life through these vignettes -- not necessarily a moveable plot. There is, however, a pervasive feeling of change. World war is underway. Industry changes and grows in leaps and bounds. People begin to think about their connection to their world. Corruption and crime seem to be new words in their vocabulary.
Yet Saroyan's characters remain pillars of strength in their changing world. And there are a good many characters: Mr. Spangler, manager of a telegraph office, who sees nothing but goodness in people; Mr. Grogan, the always drunk telegrapher; Rosa Sandoval, who lost her son in the war; Mrs. Macauley, widow, filled with a clear, well-lit knowledge of the universe; and others: Charlie, who lost 33 Belgian rabbits; Big Chris; Fat, Texas, Horse, three soldiers; Ara the grocer; Mary Arena, girlfriend of Marcus Macauley, Homer and Ulysses's brother who went off to war.
For the Macauley brothers, their future and their expectations for the future, is pinned to the return of their brother. When another soldier returns to Ithica with news of Marcus's death, the Macauleys', as a family, find strength and even see a brightness in their darkness.
To read Saroyan is to feel the return of something this world, our world, has lost. It is more than innocence, it is the recognition of the presence and power of love.

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