Arthur Miller
Posted by climach on 2008
I’m so glad I read Death of a Salesman first!
The Crucible is standard. It fits right in with the standard American English 10th-grade curriculum that is pitifully trying to make 16-year-olds interested in things that happened before America had many good novelists. May it live long on the high-school bookshelves. I have nothing against it. But it didn’t move me.
Death of a Salesman, though… The first time I read it, I told my high school teacher that I couldn’t read anything else for at least three days. She understood. I’ve read it half a dozen times, seen it performed live, and own the movie version that Arthur Miller consulted on. Every character is pitiful, but so alive! Every line rings true.
I won’t be surprised if history shows that more people read The Crucible—but Death of a Salesman may change, and save, more lives.
