On Not Being Someone Else

To be someoneto be anyoneis aboutnot being someone else. Millers amused and inspired book is utterly compelling. Adam Phillips A compendium of expressions of wonder over what might have beenSwept up in our real lives, we quickly forget about the unreal ones. Still, there will be moments when, for good or ill, we feel confronted by our unrealized possibilities. New Yorker We live one life, formed by paths taken and untaken. Choosing a job, getting married, deciding on a place to live or whether to have childrenevery decision precludes another. But what if youd gone the other way? From Robert Frost to Sharon Olds, Virginia Woolf to Ian McEwan, Jane Hirshfield to Carl Dennis, storytellers of every stripe consider the roads not taken, the lives we havent led. What is it that compels us to identify with fictional and poetic voices tantalizing us with the shadows of what might have been? Not only poets and novelists, but psychologists and philosophers have much to say on this question. Miller finds wisdom in all of these, revealing the beauty, the allure, and the danger of sustaining or confronting our unled lives. Miller is charming company, both humanly and intellectually. He is onto something: the theme of unled lives, and the fascinating idea that fiction intensifies the sense of provisionality that attends all lives. An extremely attractive book. James Wood An expertly curated tour of regret and envy in literatureMillers insightful and moving bookboth in his own discussion and in the tales he recountsgently nudges us toward consolation. Wall Street Journal I wish I had written this bookExamining arts capacity to transfix, multiply, and compress, this book is itself a work of art. Times Higher Education