"Pay no Attention to it! Be quiet."

My Name is Aram

by William Saroyan

In the fall of 2016, my family and I went to a production of The Phantom of the Opera at the Saroyan Theatre in Fresno, CA. I guess it was named after this guy.

My mom uncovered this book somewhere and passed it on to me, with some passing comment about it being interesting. This is how I seem to acquire many of the books I read.

This is the quirkiest book I've ever read. I love it!!!!! The author seems to be having the best time telling what seem to be true stories from his childhood growing up in an Armenian immigrant community near Fresno. Because he couches it as fiction, he has a perfectly wonderful time leading the reader to speculate on how accurate these portrayals might be and gives himself perfect freedom to exaggerate and parody what I imagine to be real people.

I am totally envious of kids in the past. They literally seemed to have so much freedom. They had to be thick skinned but they had a lot of freedom to roam around, and in this case get into mischief.

My favorite character is his formidable uncle Khosrove. who basically just says "Pay no attention to it. Be quiet! I love you." In response to anything and everything.

This could become my new mantra as a parent. You really could respond to everything adequately. "Pay no attention to it." "Be Quiet!" "I love you." Yes, says it all.