Timebends: A Life

Rating:
Summary: jumpy and tiresome
Review: After having read 'Timebends,' I can only say that I am grateful that Miller decided on drama rather than the novel as a form of expression. While this autobiography does give us glimpses into a very interesting life, the author, without warning, often abandons his discussion and jumps into some other person he has bumped into along the way. Meanwhile, his family, his wives and children remain shadowy figures at best. At any given point in the book it is anyone's guess to whom Miller is married. I would gladly have exchanged much of the anecdotal material, some of which seems to drag on endlessley, for the more important influences in his life, specifically the women. Only Marilyn Monroe gets the thorough treatment, although I suspect strongly that the mother and the wives were more than simply 'props' in this colorful career. Only toward the end does the mother appear more sharply defined but, sadly, it is at the moment of her passing. I found a great deal of trivial detail which I would have exchanged gladly for insights about the impact of having a family and familial responsibilities while trying to be a writer. The treatment of his marriage to Monroe and his insights into her personality are very worthwhile, as are the discussions of his plays, particularly "Salesman." However, the reader could easily have been spared much of the tedious detail that dominates much of this great tome.

Rating:
Summary: Arthur Miller a Life
Review: I have owned this book but lost it in a move. I had marked many passages which left an indelible imprint on me. I reread the book after getting it out of the Library and now am buying it again to read it for the third time again marking my favorite passages. He pulls no punches and tells it like it is.

Rating:
Summary: a useable past
Review: In an interview conducted before he wrote this book, Miller said, "I think memoirs, autobiography...can help to translate chaos into something that is a useable past. Give an image where there was only a blur." He suggests the kind of autobiography he would be interested in writing would be more about the time he was living rather than his life, so a reader would "come away from it somehow a little heavier than he went into it." In all of this, TIMEBENDS succeeds wonderfully. I learned a great deal more about the textures, realities and signficance of the 1930s, 40s and 50s through his observations and images than through any linear professional histories. A bonus for those who enjoy seeing and reading Miller's plays is his deliberate selection of significant events and people in his life that show up in the plays in one way or another. And he does have great stories and observations about famous people--Olivier, Clark Gable, etc.-- that are the more conventional pleasures of show biz autobios. Even if he wasn't among the most important American dramatists of our time--perhaps the most important--this book would be a significant literary accomplishment. Miller is a careful writer, so readers perhaps unused to tact and understatement in memoirs are advised to look beyond their expectations to what he actually says. Yet his chapters on Marilyn Monroe were vivid and gave me more of an impression of her as a person than anything else I've read. Miller's voice brings all of this varied material together, and so the reader might approach this book as if listening to a great storyteller. This is a book full of heart, humor, wisdom and perspectives not found elsewhere. It is a treasure and a gift.

Rating:
Summary: a useable past
Review: In an interview conducted before he wrote this book, Miller said, "I think memoirs, autobiography...can help to translate chaos into something that is a useable past. Give an image where there was only a blur." He suggests the kind of autobiography he would be interested in writing would be more about the time he was living rather than his life, so a reader would "come away from it somehow a little heavier than he went into it." In all of this, TIMEBENDS succeeds wonderfully. I learned a great deal more about the textures, realities and signficance of the 1930s, 40s and 50s through his observations and images than through any linear professional histories. A bonus for those who enjoy seeing and reading Miller's plays is his deliberate selection of significant events and people in his life that show up in the plays in one way or another. And he does have great stories and observations about famous people--Olivier, Clark Gable, etc.-- that are the more conventional pleasures of show biz autobios. Even if he wasn't among the most important American dramatists of our time--perhaps the most important--this book would be a significant literary accomplishment. Miller is a careful writer, so readers perhaps unused to tact and understatement in memoirs are advised to look beyond their expectations to what he actually says. Yet his chapters on Marilyn Monroe were vivid and gave me more of an impression of her as a person than anything else I've read. Miller's voice brings all of this varied material together, and so the reader might approach this book as if listening to a great storyteller. This is a book full of heart, humor, wisdom and perspectives not found elsewhere. It is a treasure and a gift.

Rating:
Summary: This will bend your mind if you've got the time!
Review: This autobiography, written by Miller at age 72, strikes the reader immediately with his wonderful writing style. He does not march year by year through his life but bobs and weaves subtly bending time with his abundant dramatic talent. It is a pleasure to read. But so much in his life! It does go on and on. It is a book for leisure, not speed, reading. He brings to live the Depression Age, insight into our real life in World War II, the ugliness of the House un-American Activities Committee and McCarthyism (he was convicted of contempt for Congress for refusal to name names though the conviction was later overturned upon appeal), and of course he writes on his successes of his plays All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, the Crucible and of many others as well as his failures. All this with Marilyn Monroe yet to come! He seems continually embroiled in injustice and wrenching emotional turmoil. With his third wife, in his 40s, he gets his emotional life together but still pursues freedom for writers as a president of PEN. Miller, now 85, still writes and has recently published 60 years of collected essays entitled as Echoes Down the Corridor. Some of the material covers the events covered in TimeBends, but TimeBends is much more interesting.

Rating:
Summary: This will bend your mind if you've got the time!
Review: This autobiography, written by Miller at age 72, strikes the reader immediately with his wonderful writing style. He does not march year by year through his life but bobs and weaves subtly bending time with his abundant dramatic talent. It is a pleasure to read. But so much in his life! It does go on and on. It is a book for leisure, not speed, reading. He brings to live the Depression Age, insight into our real life in World War II, the ugliness of the House un-American Activities Committee and McCarthyism (he was convicted of contempt for Congress for refusal to name names though the conviction was later overturned upon appeal), and of course he writes on his successes of his plays All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, the Crucible and of many others as well as his failures. All this with Marilyn Monroe yet to come! He seems continually embroiled in injustice and wrenching emotional turmoil. With his third wife, in his 40s, he gets his emotional life together but still pursues freedom for writers as a president of PEN. Miller, now 85, still writes and has recently published 60 years of collected essays entitled as Echoes Down the Corridor. Some of the material covers the events covered in TimeBends, but TimeBends is much more interesting.

Rating:
Summary: A long haul very illuminating at times
Review: This is a very detailed autobiography. I think the very best parts of it relate to the period of Miller's life when he was a young and eager playwright. The whole story of the first stagings of ' Death of a Salesman'is a truly fascinating one. One of the major problems of the work for me however was that Miller could supply tremendous detail and also insight about people without really probing inwardly very deeply . I also believe he held back a lot of punches, a lot of bitter truth in writing about people closest to him.
A great playwright it turns out may be a very good, but not a great autobiographer.

Rating:
Summary: way too abridged
Review: This two cassette audiobook read by the playwright was far too abridged and just whetted my appetite to read the entire book.