Friday, February 18, 2005

I'm Not The Only One

To dislike Arthur Miller. When they announced his passing earlier this week and hailing Death Of A Salesman as a classic I shuddered at the memory of reading the play back in college. Sure the play is memorable, but only because I hated it. I thought it was one of the bleakest things I had ever read with such a bitter outlook I was surprised the pages of the text could keep from curdling. I guess that was the point of the thing, but why do people want to subject themselves to such cynicism? I'm not some sentimental positivist, Madame Bovary is one of my favorite novels and it's far from sunny skies, but Death Of A Salesman lacks all nuance. Miller was just mean to write it and even meaner to the poor characters that inhabit the play. I figured my wife and I were the only people around that had critical thoughts on Miller this week, but Colby Cash has a nice small piece to say about the man too.

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