William Saroyan Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Burton Rascoe

Critical Essay by Burton Rascoe

SOURCE: "Saroyan on the Flying Trapeze," in New York Herald Tribune Books, October 21, 1934, p. 9.

Rascoe was an American literary critic who contributed to such influential periodicals as the American Mercury, Bookman, Esquire, New York Herald Tribune Books, and Newsweek. In the following review of The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and Other Stories, he dedares Saroyan "an extraordinary talent" and lauds his promise as a writer.

Our breath is bated while we await the progress and development of the extraordinary talent which produced the title story of [The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and Other Stories]. Will young Mr. Saroyan, we ask, ever get outside himself for more than a sustained instant and cease to marvel at himself as at an animated forked radish, wistful, sentient and beset in a pumpkin and spinach universe? And will we like him then, quite as much...
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