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Outrageous Fortune: Gloomy Reflections on Luck and Life

Outrageous Fortune: Gloomy Reflections on Luck and Life

by Miller, William Ian
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780197530689 Oxford University Press, USA

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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Product details

BrandOxford University Press, USA
Pub dateDec 1, 2020
ISBN-100197530680
ISBN-139780197530689
Pages192
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.3 × 6.1 × 0.9 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-09-07 22:29
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