A friend of mine was asking what she should read next, so I suggested Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman. Another late night conversation ensued:

Have you heard of The Crucible?

Yeah.

Same guy.

What's it about?

It's about this guy, this guy, he's going crazy, because he's bought into this American dream thing, you know, you work hard and you'll get rich. But it's not true! I mean I've been in fast food places, like Mcdonalds and taco bell and so on, and these kids only earn minimum wage but they work really hard - anyone who's on this minimum wage trick knows that there is no connection at all between hard work and being rich. But this guy Willy Loman really bought into it, and it's making him crazy. He has this brother who got rich somehow, in Alaska or something, they never tell you what he did, and it doesn't really matter, but it's feeding into this crazy stuff going on in Willy's head and eventually he just snaps. He can't figure out why he can't pay the mortgage, he can't pay the bills and all he does is work all day. It's a great risk Arthur Miller took, because you don't get many charmless losers front and centre in any sort of artistic production. Apart from this play, I can't think of any. There is literally nothing heroic about Willy Loman, but he's the subject of the play, so presumably you have to identify with him on some level.

So what, he's a dick?

No, I wouldn't say - well, no. He is. He's a dick. He's a dick to everyone. So he's been lying to himself for all these years about what his life is, what success means and so on, and I think this is the problem with creationists too, that-

Creationists?

Yeah those Christians who think the world is 6,000 years old, you know? I think their problem is like Willy Loman's. They have a choice - they can either accept that everything they know is wrong, and their entire lives have been a complete waste of their time, OR they can make up increasingly stupid reasons to explain the ridiculous holes of logic in their belief systems. That's what these Christians do, and that's what Willy Loman is doing. He's lying to himself the whole time because if he stops, even for a second, then his whole life is worthless and meaningless. Of course it is, he just doesn't see it. And it all comes crashing down on him, and he goes crazy and, well I don't want to ruin it for you.

He dies.

Well, yeah. How did you-

It's in the title.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. So it is. Yeah, he dies. But this thing Miller does with Loman, where he's lying to himself - I think that's one thing with which we can all identify, you know? Like I'm lying to myself that you're finding this interesting, on some level, when it's probably boring you to tears, because it makes my life easier to believe that. And everyone lies to himself about all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons, and Willy Loman is nothing but that. A bunch of lies held together with a feverish brain. And they're not even terribly dramatic lies - they're all rather pathetic and pedestrian. But we can all relate to that sort of thing, so maybe that counts as a heroic quality. I don't know. It's all just so sad, and so beautifully written.