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Men and Friendship
An intimate, revealing look at the rewards of close male friendships. Through his personal quest Miller exposes the underlying codes and dictates that prevent men from sustaining close friendships in adulthood and helps men recapture the male community of close companions left behind in childhood.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 21, 2016
Little-known and undiscovered, but this book is a true gem. Full of profound insight about human relations in the modern society, and relationships between men especially. It is not flowers and sunshine, to read this text, but the sting is worth it. Because it's time to wake up and snap out of this hypnosis that we are having friendships when in reality we barely know the people we call 'friends', or people who call us 'friends'.
The faults the book deals with are mostly relevant in case of adults, not college-age men. Students still seem to keep their friendships going (although I know examples even there where people have abandoned the concept altogether) and still value such relations. Adults don't seem to be doing so well at all, though.
This book was written in 1983, thus it didn't even have the chance to get into the subject of social media and how it has made banal and cheapened human relationships and friendships, but surprisingly, it touches even on such aspect.
I could surely sympathize with the author's insistence on deeper and more meaningful friendships, with an ideal of friendship that harks back to the classical age, and with a desire to breathe life back into the institution of friendship as a whole. This is all relevant to our contemporary age and society because most adults are having ''friendships'' that don't go further than a quick lunch every few months, and it's a sad truth that this has to be the cost of our proud independence and privacy. Because it does not have to be that way. We all get to have it better, make it better, if only we wanted to and realized how profound an effect it has on one's life.
I have always held friendship to the same high standards that were displayed by men in the past. It has always been something special to me, something deep, as necessary part of my life as the air that I breathe. But I have come to realize that my approach to friendship is different than most adult men's I know; mine is more intense and involved, friendship is more important to me than it is to most others. This is a sad and a frustrating realization. True friendship is one of the best things in life to have; to have it falter on something as silly as one party not being able to clear a few of hours a month for it is truly a sad reality we have arrived at. Frustrating, when you are the only one left fighting, trying to keep it alive, when you seem to be the only one to still care if it is still even there.
I think things can be a lot better in this regard. I think they should be better. We need to stop and start involving our friends into our monthly -- daily, even -- schedules more. It is not true that we don't have the time. It is not true that we are that busy. Friendship brightens life like the sun brightens the world and brings out the colors, it is ridiculous to opt out of this pleasure voluntarily.
The faults the book deals with are mostly relevant in case of adults, not college-age men. Students still seem to keep their friendships going (although I know examples even there where people have abandoned the concept altogether) and still value such relations. Adults don't seem to be doing so well at all, though.
This book was written in 1983, thus it didn't even have the chance to get into the subject of social media and how it has made banal and cheapened human relationships and friendships, but surprisingly, it touches even on such aspect.
I could surely sympathize with the author's insistence on deeper and more meaningful friendships, with an ideal of friendship that harks back to the classical age, and with a desire to breathe life back into the institution of friendship as a whole. This is all relevant to our contemporary age and society because most adults are having ''friendships'' that don't go further than a quick lunch every few months, and it's a sad truth that this has to be the cost of our proud independence and privacy. Because it does not have to be that way. We all get to have it better, make it better, if only we wanted to and realized how profound an effect it has on one's life.
I have always held friendship to the same high standards that were displayed by men in the past. It has always been something special to me, something deep, as necessary part of my life as the air that I breathe. But I have come to realize that my approach to friendship is different than most adult men's I know; mine is more intense and involved, friendship is more important to me than it is to most others. This is a sad and a frustrating realization. True friendship is one of the best things in life to have; to have it falter on something as silly as one party not being able to clear a few of hours a month for it is truly a sad reality we have arrived at. Frustrating, when you are the only one left fighting, trying to keep it alive, when you seem to be the only one to still care if it is still even there.
I think things can be a lot better in this regard. I think they should be better. We need to stop and start involving our friends into our monthly -- daily, even -- schedules more. It is not true that we don't have the time. It is not true that we are that busy. Friendship brightens life like the sun brightens the world and brings out the colors, it is ridiculous to opt out of this pleasure voluntarily.
January 10, 2021
Interesting read. The author is a straight man in search of strong friendships. It's a memoir of his search. He has extraordinarily high expectations of these relationships, and is often disappointed.
March 17, 2022
I honestly did not expect this book to be as good as it was. I also did not expect it to keep me on a rabbit hole looking for more information on the author, but I’ll get to that in the end.
I picked this book up at a used books store for $3 because the name seemed interesting to me — I’m very curious and gripped by male interrelationships, especially friendship. I thought this book might give some insights into the question. Miller did much more than that. His account of the interviews he conducted on his quest to understanding the different perspectives both American and European men (and sometimes women) had on male friendships is enmeshed in his own self-development and his own self-understanding of the meaning of friendship for him. His friendship with Larry Alexander almost comes as an unexpected ending — I thought Miller’s quest was going to be a failure. It’s not out of nowhere that the book has his journaling— wasn’t that the very feedback that Larry struggled to give him?
Miller’s understanding of the trials and tribulations but also the possibilities of « the art of male friendship », as he calls it, bear a high ressemblance to my own observations in the world. If I had to criticize one thing, it would be the barely touched, often glossed over, elephant in the room, namely, the lingering attribution to homosexuality that was constant in his interview. If the fear of homosexuality is part and parcel of the question of the difficulty of attaining male friendships (to the level of female friendships, the standard he holds), he did not want to explore it further, perhaps, for this very fear was in Miller himself. Why not explore this connection that was so pertinent, in his own words, in both continents he lived in? If he wants to analyse the question of male friendship as deeply as he claims, this aspect was certainly lacking.
The book’s rhetoric was so good, this book was well written and captivating, I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in the topic.
My biggest disappointment, as I prefaced, was the lack of information I could find on Miller’s life. Miller died a few years ago. His obituary, the only document I could find on his life, doesn’t state the cause of death. What happened to Miller? What happened to Miller after his marriage to Jacqueline? What happened to his friendship with Larry Alexander? Who was Stuart Miller? These questions will most likely remain unanswered.
I picked this book up at a used books store for $3 because the name seemed interesting to me — I’m very curious and gripped by male interrelationships, especially friendship. I thought this book might give some insights into the question. Miller did much more than that. His account of the interviews he conducted on his quest to understanding the different perspectives both American and European men (and sometimes women) had on male friendships is enmeshed in his own self-development and his own self-understanding of the meaning of friendship for him. His friendship with Larry Alexander almost comes as an unexpected ending — I thought Miller’s quest was going to be a failure. It’s not out of nowhere that the book has his journaling— wasn’t that the very feedback that Larry struggled to give him?
Miller’s understanding of the trials and tribulations but also the possibilities of « the art of male friendship », as he calls it, bear a high ressemblance to my own observations in the world. If I had to criticize one thing, it would be the barely touched, often glossed over, elephant in the room, namely, the lingering attribution to homosexuality that was constant in his interview. If the fear of homosexuality is part and parcel of the question of the difficulty of attaining male friendships (to the level of female friendships, the standard he holds), he did not want to explore it further, perhaps, for this very fear was in Miller himself. Why not explore this connection that was so pertinent, in his own words, in both continents he lived in? If he wants to analyse the question of male friendship as deeply as he claims, this aspect was certainly lacking.
The book’s rhetoric was so good, this book was well written and captivating, I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in the topic.
My biggest disappointment, as I prefaced, was the lack of information I could find on Miller’s life. Miller died a few years ago. His obituary, the only document I could find on his life, doesn’t state the cause of death. What happened to Miller? What happened to Miller after his marriage to Jacqueline? What happened to his friendship with Larry Alexander? Who was Stuart Miller? These questions will most likely remain unanswered.
June 9, 2016
Given that there are no reviews of this book on Goodreads, I'll try to give potential readers an idea of what this book is about.
The book is a combination of personal anecdote and literary inspiration. The author seeks to repair and/or create deep, abiding, and intimate (in the emotional sense) male friendships. The author is compelled to do this in the face of a divorce that leaves him without most of his former friends, and the abrupt realization that the male friendships so admired in literature-- Jonathan and David, Achilles and Patroclus, etc.-- are absent in his life. The author explores his existing male friendships and tries to deepen them, with varying results, and writes honestly and openly of his feelings on all of these events. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in friendship generally, especially male friendship, and a glimpse into the emotional life of the modern male.
The book is a combination of personal anecdote and literary inspiration. The author seeks to repair and/or create deep, abiding, and intimate (in the emotional sense) male friendships. The author is compelled to do this in the face of a divorce that leaves him without most of his former friends, and the abrupt realization that the male friendships so admired in literature-- Jonathan and David, Achilles and Patroclus, etc.-- are absent in his life. The author explores his existing male friendships and tries to deepen them, with varying results, and writes honestly and openly of his feelings on all of these events. I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in friendship generally, especially male friendship, and a glimpse into the emotional life of the modern male.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews