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February 11, 2005
'WRITER OF GENIUS'
PEN American Center President Salman Rushdie released the following statement this afternoon about Arthur Miller, who died Thursday at the age of 89:
Arthur Miller was a writer of genius. He made plays with the grandeur and power of high tragedy, revealing what he called, in the opening stage directions of "Death of a Salesman," the "dream rising out of reality." With the profound resonance of characters such as "Salesman"'s Willy Loman, "The Crucible"'s Abigail Williams or Eddie Carbone in "A View from the Bridge," these works have strong claims to immortality.
He was also a man of true moral stature, a rare quality in these degraded days. Writing meant, for him, an "effort to locate in the human species a counterforce to the randomness of victimization." He added, with his characteristic dry humor: "As history has taught, that counterforce can only be moral. Unfortunately."
In 2001, as Emeritus President of International PEN and Honorary Chair of PEN American Center, he said: "When political people have finished with repression and violence PEN can indeed be forgotten.... Needless to add, we shall need extraordinarily long lives to see that noble day."
Today at American PEN we mourn his passing. But we also continue to be inspired by his example, and will strive to meet the standards of intellectual and personal integrity he embodied for so long. I was lucky enough to know him a little, to observe how lightly he wore his greatness, and to see the mischievous twinkle in his eye.
I comfort myself with the thought that although the man has left us, the work is here to stay.
"Rushdie's comments were echoed in London, the headquarters of International PEN. where Miller is remembered as an invaluable voice for freedom of expression," according to a press release from the PEN American Center. "Time and again he used his influence on behalf of writers who face persecution, not only during his tenure as International PEN president but before and after, when he joined PEN delegations to countries where writers were under threat and spoke out countless times against violations of the freedom to write. At times it was Miller's [personal stature] alone that saved writers in danger."
Posted by at February 11, 2005 06:25 AM
