Cheers, Arthur

Sniff.

As a bibliophile and former high school drama geek, the passing of Arthur Miller saddens me. He wrote two of my favorite plays (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible). He's one of the best modern playwrights, and not because he used lofty language or was avante garde. He wrote stories that people can relate to. Willy Loman is one of the best characters in any play, ever, in my opinion-- the tragedy of the common man. If you can watch or read Death of a Salesman without a pang in your heart then you are dead. The world is changing too fast for Willy to keep up with, and it depresses him. I love that play.
The Crucible is also great, and is the Miller play I read in high school (hi Sharon! American Lit, whoo!). You've got to love the fact that he wrote a play about witch hunts during the McCarthy era and got away with it. Arthur Miller had balls the size of a rock star's, and it landed him Marylin Monroe, for a while.
So, thank Arthur Miller for writing some of the greatest plays of the twentieth century today. Perhaps sit down, rent the movies and enjoy them. If you're working on the Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, review some page proof. Now I miss acting...