In honor of Arthur Miller’s birthday today, enjoy Arthur Miller’s passage on John Steinbeck brought to you by PEN American Center.
Arthur Miller: A Suffering Conscience
PEN American Center 4: Fact/Fiction
This talk was presented, in slightly different form, at a PEN Twentieth-Century Masters Tribute to John Steinbeck.
A Suffering Conscience
A good writer helps to create other writers, and I can recall the first time, in the ’30s, when I read John Steinbeck’s early books, and his stories. To open those pages was like opening paintings. I remember clearly the challenge I felt to enter into nature, something I had never thought of before, coming from New York City. And I began to look around in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at trees, and animals, and I felt more alive because of his prose.
