Moron Arthur MillerI wrote a
fairly critical post on Arthur Miller after noting the phenomenal coverage that his death received. Turned out I
wasn't the only one who had not been bowled over by his intellect.
Well, they had a little memorial service for him and
Edward Albee had a cow over the New Criterion piece linked above. But the New Criterion gets the last laugh:
It's swell that Mr. Albee and his pals get together and congratulate themselves on their good taste, their celebrity and the good taste and celebrity of their friends. And no one would claim that memorial services are distinguished by their adherence to truth in advertising. But really, there are limits. Before Mr. Albee started tossing around words like “vile” and “sniggering” he ought to have reflected on the vile smugness of a playwright whose career owed much more to his radical-chic political posturing than it did to his virtues as a writer. As for “sniggering”, well, Mr. Albee concluded his remarks with the observation that “Arthur Miller was a writer who mattered. A lot.” Now that's worth sniggering about.Incidentally, I reread Death of a Salesman last month (well after writing my post) and I have to admit, it was quite a bit more nuanced than I had remembered. Although liberals love Willy Loman for supposedly revealing the sick heart of the American Dream, in fact Willy never really buys into the American Dream of hard work and integrity leading to success. Instead he buys into the American Dream as viewed by liberals; that it's all about being well-liked, that morals don't matter, that integrity doesn't matter. His failure is the failure of a guy who tried to coast through life without making the right decisions, who wants to know why it didn't result in the happy ending of the fairy tales.
Hat Tip:
Power Line
