Despite the complete lack of (solicited! requested! begged!) assistance from any of you, I am off. Sussex for the first week, London for the next.
While I’m gone, you all should:
No. Really. I insist. Report back to me with your misadventures.
Adieu!
Arthur Miller died yesterday.
The NYTimes called him The Last of the Giants of American Theatre. I am no Theatre Critic, I am weak on my History of American Theatre. But Arthur Miller was brilliant. Yes, he was a Giant of American Theatre, a Giant of Twentieth-Century American Theatre, a critic & historian of Twentieth-Century American Culture … all those things for which he will be remembered.
And I remember reading Death of A Salesman for the first time – the classic College Literature experience of juxtaposing the Tragedy of Willie Loman against the Tragedy of Oedipus, compare and contrast, define the Tragedy in the Classic sense and the Modern sense, explain "Hubris", one-thousand words on the differences and similarities between Loman & Oedipus …
What I remember is how Mr. Miller sought out the humanness, the usualness, the everyone-ness, in the daily drama of striving to be better, even in fooling ourselves that we are what we are not – in simply wanting to exist and to be remembered with some fondness.
I remember Mr. Miller with some fondness.
