Outrageous fortune : gloomy reflections on luck and life /
In this book, William Ian Miller offers his reflections on the perverse consequences, indeed, often the opposite of intended effects, of so-called good things. Noted for his remarkable erudition, wit, and playful pessimism, Miller here ranges over topics from personal disasters to literary and natio...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Oxford University Press,
[2021]
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| Summary: | In this book, William Ian Miller offers his reflections on the perverse consequences, indeed, often the opposite of intended effects, of so-called good things. Noted for his remarkable erudition, wit, and playful pessimism, Miller here ranges over topics from personal disasters to literary and national ones. Drawing on a truly immense store of knowledge encompassing literature, philosophy, theology and history, he excavates the evidence of human anxieties around scarcity in all its forms (from scarcity of food to luck to where we stand in the eyes of others caught in a game of musical chairs we often do not even know we are playing). With wit and sensitivity, along with a large measure of fearless self-scrutiny, he points to and invites us to recognize the gloomy, neurotic, despondent tendencies of reasonably sentient human life. The book is a careful examination of negative beliefs, inviting an experience of bleak fellow-feeling among the author, the reader, and many a hapless soul across the centuries. Just what makes you more nervous, he asks, a run of good luck, or a run of bad? |
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| Physical Description: | ix, 182 pages ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197530689 0197530680 |