I’ve had this clipping since 2004.I t’s a review of a book called Faking It, by William Ian Miller. It’s about “the distance that exists between the self that is engaged in a performance of some sort, and the self that acts as a commentator, an often cynical and disparaging commentator on that performance.” The keyword for me is performance, because I so often come at ideas from the POV of a playwright. There must be some of this in Miller’s approach because one of his reference points is Erving Goffman who is one of my favourite go-to touchstones. Goffman was a sociologist whose thinking I discovered and claimed long before i learned that his work was on the required reading lists of the National Theatre (of Canada) for the directing and playwriting courses. I wonder if it still is.
“Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007 he was listed by The Times Higher Education Guide as the sixth most-cited author in the humanities and social sciences, behind Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Anthony Giddens, and ahead of Jürgen Habermas.” Wikipedia
What fascinated me was his dramaturgical analysis of common social interactions. Four of his books are in my seed-beds bookcase, where I keep books whose ideas stimulate my thinking and trigger more ideas. Now I’m all fired up, and running a long way past Faking It.
However, there was something else I wanted to check. The name Walter Ian Miller seemed familiar…sure enough, I own a later book of his called Losing it, with an interesting description: “in which an aging professor LAMENTS his shrinking BRAIN, which he flatters himself formerly did him Noble Service***A Plaint, tragi-comical, historical, vengeful, sometimes satirical and thankful in six parts, if this Memory does yet serve.”
I read it when I was reading for my aging book (ENDINGS: A BOOK FOR ALMOST EVERYONE). What really lingered was Miller’s Icelandic connection, not mentioned in the Wikipedia information. in Chapter 10 (Giving up Smoting for Good), he writes, ”I make a living reading the Icelandic sagas, the smartest of writing on the politics and strategies of revenge.” A lot of the sagas are in his bibliography, as well as the Havamal, and the Codex Regius (Gragas: Laws of Early Iceland) and, of course, Beowulf.
Well, as if that wasn’t enough forgotten treasure to discover but when I looked up Walter Ian Miller, I was offered Walter M.Miller - lo and behold!- who wrote one of my favourite books, and he died without my noticing. “Walter Michael Miller Jr. (1923 –1996) was an American science fiction writer. He is known primarily for A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959).” Wikipedia Yes, indeed, that’s what I knew him for, gratefully. ( I never thought of him as a sci-fi writer.)
This has been a splendid day. I have to browse in some of these riches. I hope you do, too.