Timebends: A Life

This is one of the most beautifully written books that I have ever read. I recommend it to everybody who is interested in writing. After finishing the book I was struck by the foolish thought that this man could certainly have been a great novelist or poet - but then what is wrong with becoming a great American playwright. But it did seem to me strange that a man who could write in this manner would make his living writing dialogue. It is amazing. This book is, of course, a memoir. Mr. Miller lived a full life. He was an intellectual. His life with Marilyn is expressed honestly and provides a very good insight into who and what she was. There is no doubt that he was in love with the woman. This book is a good book on all levels but I would repeat my initial recommendation. If you are a writer and aspire to learn the craft, this book is a manual on how to write beautifully and intelligently. To me, his life and Marilyn are only the excuse for this endeavor - it is a work of art. Books written by Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher: "Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.." "A Summer with Charlie" Salisbury Beach, Lawrence YMCA "A Little Something: Poetry and Prose "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" Novel - Lawrence, Ma. "The Eastpointer" Selections from award winning column. "Noble Notes on Famous Folks" Humor - satire - and facts.

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.

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.

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.

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