Total Page : 288
Publisher : Thomas Nelson
Publication Date : 2009 09 29
>> a dream
I had a dream the other night where I was in High School again I was able to redo everything and avoid the things that hurt me and do things I wish I would have done I went and explained this to my future wife she didn t believe me at first but then she did But then I had to make a choice do I want to go back to the way things are or start over This was tough because I could really do things better but then I thought about the life I had and it was great I was growing in Christ I had 2 children and one on the way and there was no guarantee that I would have that that I would have Olivia Grayson and the third one that was on the way my children So I chose to keep things the way the were and woke up very blessed and content In the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller reminds me alot about my dream It leaves me gracious of God s control and power and what He has blessed me with In the end I found myself looking at it more positively than I had about halfway through and I can see it being a great read for someone who needs an extra thought into how they might live their life more meaningfully but it just wasn t that impacting for me I d give the book a 3 5/5
>> Insightful but meandering
Before I get to my main comments on this book I d like to mention one issue that I found particularly distressing the large number of typographical errors The book I read before A Million Miles was the Penguin edition of The Count of Monte Cristo translated by Robin Buss the only version to read in my opinion It s about 1100 pages of small text and in the entire book I noticed only maybe half a dozen typos In Donald Miller s book on the other hand a short book with big type I found numerous individual pages that had more than six typos This is not an exaggeration On page 98 the names Hemingway and Stephen King were both misspelled and about 2/3 of the way into the book there were suddenly 15 or so pages where all the rules of punctuating dialogue seemed to have been discarded And those were dialogue heavy pages This is highly unprofessional and the blame falls squarely on the publisher Perhaps Thomas Nelson fired their proofreaders when the economy went south maybe the person doing the layout was an idiot I don t know But it does a serious disservice to the author Many readers won t care but many will and I m one of them If I d suspected the book was this typo heavy I never would have spent my money on it
Having said that let me admit I had mixed feelings about the content of the book Basically Donald Miller as the narrator comes across as likable intelligent passionate but mixed up unfocused confused and occasionally foolish And that s a good thing he seems a lot like me He often writes lines of prose that are real zingers beautifully composed sentences that are insightful and funny No mean feat But to be perfectly honest there aren t enough such sentences in this book Or to be more exact the really good writing here is outweighed by too much that s either neutral which any book will have or sad to say downright boring glib predictable sometimes just muddled
The good stuff is all in the first half of the book I saw another reviewer claim they liked the book s last half better but I strongly disagree In the early pages Miller sets up the issues he wants to deal with creates the expectation of greater development provides lots of insight food for thought and sometimes very funny stories all the while making the reader care about what happens to him But he doesn t provide any payoff at the end Look at the Contents page the book is supposedly structured around ideas from Robert McKee s Story and if you know anything about these ideas you know there has to be some kind of resolution in terms of character development Miller implicitly promises the reader to provide something similar to that in a rather pomo Christian way perhaps not as over the top as in the movie Adaptation but still the promise is made If you don t know anything about Robert McKee and Story or the movie called Adaptation don t worry Miller provides all the background you need and very entertainingly
But Miller doesn t keep his promise There s no resolution Instead he gives the reader all the lessons all the morals all the theme early in the book and by the end of it he s frankly just reciting vaguely moralistic inspiration For instance Miller includes a chapter on the death of a friend s wife The subject is inherently moving but it has no place in this book and Miller really doesn t have anything to say about it that s not obvious Only at the end of the chapter does he even attempt to connect it to what he s been saying about the notion of story and by that point in the book we ve heard it already It adds nothing
This promise was initially made when Miller talked about the filmmakers initiating a project with him to turn a previous book he wrote into a movie even though the book didn t have much in the way of narrative And by the way did I understand Miller to say that Steve Miller was the same Steve Miller who led the Steve Miller Band I thought so at first but apparently that was not the case In setting up his story this way Donald Miller presents the reader with a very clever twist on the topic of story he wrote a book that wasn t a story then these filmmakers wanted his help in turning it into a story and this caused Miller to reflect on the meaning of story in his life and relationship with God so now here s Miller telling the reader the story of how all this happened and what he learned
In other words it s all highly self aware and ironic a multi layered examination of story in the form of a story that seems intended both to undermine certain ideas about story cf Robert McKee while implicitly affirming them
But this is where the book fails This stuff is presented in the early chapters then basically ignored as the book comes to a close Too bad There was a lot of promise in it I hope Miller returns to this book in the future maybe to revise it and really deal with these questions of art and narrative
Something else I d like to comment on but don t quite have a fully formed opinion about is the variation in Miller s prose style He uses three main styles plain prose telling funny self deprecating anecdotes analytical theological prose in which he breaks down the ideas he s dealing with and soaring poetic prose reminiscent of Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek though not quite as rich as Annie Dillard The three styles sometimes overlap a bit but they never quite mesh I like the variability and I like all three styles quite a lot but as I read the book I felt somewhat that the variability undermined the feeling that Miller s persona was a unified character That is it started to seem as if Miller might be rather more calculating than he seemed at first glance shifting from one mode to another to create certain effects and that sense made me wonder if I could trust him
For example in his initial discussions of Robert McKee s ideas Miller presents himself as a fool who has no idea what any of this means his apparently distracted friend is shown having a much firmer grasp on McKee than Miller claims he has Yet soon thereafter we find Miller discoursing on some of these ideas in surprising depth Yet we re not told how he got from the state of ignorance to the state of understanding
Let me end by affirming again that quite often the writing in this book is truly beautiful You owe it to yourself to find this beauty and bathe in it
But wait for the paperback With any luck the typos will be fixed
>> Another Hit by Donald Miller
I love Donald Miller It started when I took my friend s advice to read Blue Like Jazz and it s continued ever since After reading Blue Like Jazz I read Searching for God Knows What and Through Painted Deserts Over time I must say that I have a certain expectation for Miller s work and this book did not disappoint
I will admit that I was hesitant about the topic of the book Reading about Donald Miller s journey after becoming very successful didn t REALLY appeal to me that much However once I started the book I found myself reading as intently as I had read with his other books Reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years was refreshing to me It took me back to a place of curiosity within my faith that I m sad to say has been missing recently What I appreciate most about Miller is his ability to not only see God in the most ordinary every day things but to subsequently express that in a way that his readers can easily understand That skill as a writer is truly a gift
As with previous books that I ve read by Donald Miller I was pushed to think about myself and how I view my faith and my relationship with God Miller also seems to have mastered the ability of writing about ones self without seeming too self absorbed or overly arrogant which is another skill that as a writer is a gift
I would and already have recommend this book to anyone who is seeking to explore their faith in a new way or just want to go a deeper level in their faith Those not familiar with Miller and his style of writing may have to adjust but it s an easy adjustment to make and definitely one that is worth it Miller doesn t disappoint
