"Chance Meetings" is another of the familiar, loosely tied remembrances that [Saroyan] has done before but, as always, there are new and marvelously alive passages, and his wonderful, unconditioned people…. Years ago Mr. Saroyan postulated that there are two kinds of writers: those who run to meet death, and those who fight to keep it off. It's always been clear which side he's on, and so every person he's met, everything he's done, becomes cause for celebration…. (p. 11)
There is a particular theory about friendship in this book: "Brief friendships have such definite starting and stopping points that they take on a quality of art, of a whole thing, which cannot be broken or spoiled." Mr. Saroyan prefers these brief acquaintanceships, these chance meetings; he sometimes gets upset when the friendship extends past that wholeness; when, for example, the bookseller he's been chatting with for months suddenly realizes that his customer is the Saroyan. What Mr. Saroyan is talking about, I believe, is his own special ability to see a wholeness, a unity, in an episode. It is what makes him a great storyteller. His many short stories in that long list of published work stay with us; though they are each a tiny thing, they are whole and complete.
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