Yul S. Pariah

A revealing glimpse of Winters as a young man

Revisado: 11-09-24

The book Band of Brothers and subsequent HBO miniseries created legions of new admirers for Major Richard Winters, including me. The on-camera interviews Winters gave for the miniseries in the early 2000s when he was 82 years old revealed a gentle, soft-spoken, philosophical, and humble man, which no doubt contributed to the public's appreciation of him.

For those of us who only knew Major Winters as an old man, this book is a revealing glimpse into Major Winters as a young man during the war, in his own words via the letters he wrote to his pen pal DeEtta Almon between 1941 and 1945, when he was between 23 and 27 years old. Not surprisingly, he was a vigorous, confident, opinionated, and somewhat arrogant young man in those years, no doubt shaped by the intensity of the training and combat he experienced in those years.

As the commander of an elite parachute infantry unit, he developed what could be called a "superiority complex", in which he regarded most other military personnel as inept slackers, or worse, compared to the men of his unit. He was especially disdainful and dismissive of U.S. Navy personnel, who he looked down upon because they rarely faced the enemy eyeball-to-eyeball as his infantry unit did, which seems to be the only measure of a fighting man's worth that mattered to Winters in those years. It is not clear how he arrived at such a dim view of the U.S. Navy, considering their vital contribution to winning the war. Perhaps he was unaware that over in the Pacific, the U.S. Navy was suffering horrific casualties second only to the U.S. Army. The naval battles of Midway, Guadalcanal, and the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis (not to mention Pearl Harbor) are sufficient to illustrate that U.S. naval personnel fought, suffered, and died just as bravely as the infantry in WWII.

DeEtta Almon joined the U.S. Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services) during the war. In his letters to DeEtta, Winters is often dismissive of women in the service, implying in several letters that women in uniform served no useful purpose other than as divertisement for the male soldiers, sailors, and marines. Additionally, Winters frequently teased DeEtta simply for being a woman; in one of his last letters to her, he suggested that she not aspire to go to college after the war because a woman can only be happy with a husband and children. He often addressed her as "squirt" or "kid" the way an older man might address his younger sister, while in fact, DeEtta Almon was 6 years older than Winters.

Admittedly, it is not fair to judge a person's attitudes from 80 years ago based on the attitudes of today, and most people say and do things in their 20s that they would not say and do decades later after a lifetime of experience and reflection. Winters' attitudes and opinions were fairly typical for young American men in the 1940s, and he was probably considered a normal, well-adjusted American man, with above-average ethics and personal character by 1940s standards.

Overall, this interesting book gives the modern reader a glimpse into real-world 1940s American attitudes, especially during the most momentous and horrific war of the 20th Century. It also serves as a literary snapshot of the young Richard Winters as he developed from a green and (at first) not very motivated soldier to become one of the great combat leaders and tacticians of WWII, according to those who served with him.

The narrator does an excellent job of reading Winters' letters with the right tone and expression, which he succeeds in keeping separate from his narrator's voice in the transitional material between the letters. Where the narrator fails is in his atrocious pronunciation of non-English cities, towns, and regions. There are a few exceptions, which he seems to get right almost by accident, but most often he cluelessly applies American English rules of pronunciation to every French and German proper noun in the book, and there are A LOT of them considering where most of the action in the book took place. For anyone who has watched the Band of Brothers mini-series (in which the place names were pronounced correctly), it is difficult to listen to these words butchered so amateurishly without cringing. Any audiobook narrator in today's world only needs to Google a word to find an audio file or YouTube video of a native speaker pronouncing it correctly. I do not expect an American to pronounce a French town like Mourmelon the way a native French speaker would, but I expect a better attempt than "More Melon" as if he was ordering a second serving of cantelope. Aside from the multitudinous mispronunciations, the narrator's work is enjoyable and suitable for the material.

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Excellent book. Unacceptable "narration".

Revisado: 01-30-24

I was eager to read this book, reputed to be one of the best biographies of Annie Oakley now available. With a long commute every day and little time to read physical books anymore, I was excited to discover that this book was recently released in audiobook form. Audiobooks allow me to enjoy many more books than I otherwise could. Since 2006, I have amassed a collection of several thousand audiobooks read by hundreds of different narrators of various skill levels. I have even listened to other audiobooks by Laura Schreiber, the narrator of this book, and have had no complaints so far.

However, even though Laura Schreiber is credited as the narrator of this book, the "person" narrating this audiobook sounds like an AI-generated imitation of Laura Schreiber. The first red flag appeared early in the book when the word Winchester (the legendary rifle manufacturer) was misread as "Wine-Hester" with the letter "c" being mistaken for the letter "e". It's unthinkable that any professional narrator living in the English-speaking world would NOT know how to pronounce the word Winchester even if he/she knows nothing about firearms. It's as unthinkable as not knowing how to pronounce Steinway or Cadillac even if you know nothing about pianos or cars. However, one can easily see how a computer-based text-to-speech program could mistake the letter "c" for "e" to arrive at a pronunciation as ludicrous and meaningless as "Wine-Hester". Even if the word is misprinted in the book as "Winehester", a real human with any knowledge of English would know that it's a misprint and correctly read the word as Winchester. A computer would not, and would simply plow through with an absurdly wrong pronunciation, as is the case here.

Over time, it became impossible to believe that I was listening to a real human narrator. Besides the aforementioned misreading of the word Winchester, the narrator seems to have no sense of the cadence of normal human speech, often leaving unnaturally long gaps between words, and stressing words or syllables in an unnatural, non-human way, as if he/she does not understand English and is merely reading phonetically. That is not the case with the real Laura Schreiber who has 20 audiobooks on Audible at the time of this writing, all of them in English.

By the time I was 45 minutes into the book, I realized that I had comprehended almost nothing of the story being told because my mind was so distracted by the so-called narrator. To make matters worse, there are various editing errors such as false starts in which a sentence is begun, stopped abruptly, and then begun again. Editing errors of this kind happen from time to time in the audiobook profession, but not often as human editors usually catch these mistakes before the audiobook is published. By itself, the rare false start in audiobooks is a forgivable thing, if momentarily distracting. But combined with the distinctly non-human cadence of the narrator's speech, this audiobook is unlistenable in my opinion. It's a shame because what little I could discern from the story suggests this is an excellent book worthy of its good reputation among Annie Oakley biographies. I suppose I will have to find time to read the physical book, or hope the audiobook is redone by a real human narrator.

It seems likely that someday (if that day is not already here), AI will replace real human narrators in the audiobook profession. As sad as that is, I could live with it if the finished product sounds convincingly human and allows me to digest the book as well as if read by a real person. However, if this title is a realistic example of the capabilities of AI in the field of audiobook narration, I would say that the technology still has a long way to go before it can replace human narrators. Quite a long way!

If anyone in Audible management is reading this, please pull this book from circulation and have it redone by a real human. It deserves good narration by a real human narrator. It also reflects badly on Audible quality control, and audiobooks in general.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Highly recommened!

Revisado: 08-13-23

For anyone who has ever read through a screenplay, the structure of this audiobook will be very comfortable and familiar. This is an audio performance by professional actors of two of Dashiell Hammett's screenplays for After the Thin Man (1936) and Another Thin Man (1939), the second and third films in the Thin Man film series with Myrna Loy and William Powell. Unlike the original The Thin Man film (1934), which was based on Dashiell Hammett's final book, The Thin Man, the stories for After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man were conceived as screenplays from the start.

This production is very slickly produced, with a large cast of characters. A few minor quibbles aside, most of the cast is excellent in my opinion, with veteran narrator Scott Brick reading all the directions between the dialog and also narrating a thoroughly researched backstory on the genesis of these screenplays before and between the two performances. The pacing is energetic and the transition between characters and narrator is seamless. Kudos to the editor of this production!

Yes, of course, one should watch the original films to experience a more complete realization of Hammett's conception, but these two productions are a lot of fun and serve a different purpose, much the way many popular films of the 1930s and 40s were turned into radio plays, often with the same actors who appeared in the original films reprising their roles on the radio. Plus, even though Hammett conceived these screenplays for Hollywood in the 1930s, knowing all the Production Code restrictions that were then in place, ultimately some of the material that Hammett wrote was deemed unsuitable for the films by the Production Code and left out. Therefore, these readings are the first time the public gets to experience Hammett's original conceptions, complete and uncensored.

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Not just another VO and audiobook narration book

Revisado: 09-11-22

I have listened to many excellent audiobooks that teach voiceover and audiobook narration. All of them had something valuable to offer. What made this book different and special for me was the whole being approach (for lack of a better term) of Dian Perry's teaching. Not at all "pseudoscience" (as another reviewer labeled it) this book approaches audiobook narration & VO work from a mind/body/spirit perspective. If you practice meditation, T'ai Chi, Yoga, or any spiritual practice that promotes bringing one's entire being into every activity, then this book will likely make a lot of sense to you. Of course, this approach will not work for everyone, but for me, Dian Perry's approach offered a fresh perspective on VO and audiobook narration that I found illuminating, and that no other book I have encountered on this subject has been able to provide.

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I am not a German speaker, but...

Revisado: 10-11-20

...I am sympathetic to reviewers who have singled out the German pronunciation of the narrator as a stumbling block to enjoying this audiobook. However, as a non-German speaker, I am free to enjoy all that is good about this audiobook. The timbre, cadence, and expressivity of the narrator's voice all added greatly to my enjoyment of this audiobook. It would be a shame to miss this simply because of less-than-idiomatic German pronunciation. Here are some reasons why:

Firstly, the book itself is one of the most scholarly biographies of Hitler yet written, and will likely remain so for decades to come.

Secondly, at the time of this writing, there are no other audio versions of this book available.

Thirdly, this book is in English. True, the subject matter is German, but the overwhelming majority of the words in this book are in English. Therefore, the mispronounced German words make up a very small percentage of the total content of this audiobook. So, besides being offended by the mangling of some German words by the narrator, as some German-speaking reviewers are, it is still entirely possible to completely understand and enjoy the content of the book, in so much as one can "enjoy" a book about Hitler's life.

Fourthly, I have enjoyed numerous audiobooks written in English that were narrated by people for whom English was not their first language. This means that some of the words were not pronounced as idiomatically as a native English speaker would. Did it prevent me from enjoying the book? Of course not. My command of English is not so flimsy that I cannot figure out what is being said, even if the pronunciation of some of the words is wrong.

Should the publisher have had a native German speaker check the finished product for correct pronunciation, as some reviewers have suggested? Possibly, but that is probably an expense most audiobook publishers cannot afford. Perhaps for a major celebrity tell-all book, but not for a biography, regardless of how good it is. I have known people who narrate audiobooks. It is not how they earn a living. It doesn't pay enough. It is a sideline. In other words, audiobooks are probably not the sort of big-budget operation that can afford the kind of quality control that would allow for a native German-speaking pronunciation-checker on the payroll. But, that's just a guess on my part.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Excellent despite flaws

Revisado: 10-10-20

Despite the obvious flaws with audio production, which have been mentioned in other reviews, this is a very compelling story, told in vividly descriptive language, and with unexpected personal candor on the part of the author. Granted, this book will probably only have appeal to those with a fascination with World War II submarines, but if that describes you, then I recommend this book wholeheartedly. It’s one of the better books on American submarine actions in World War II that I have encountered.

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Phoned in?

Revisado: 09-18-08

These stories do not represent Fitzgerald at his best or most mature, but they are certainly worth reading (hearing) once or twice. The reader deserves a lot of credit for his heroic effort in making these stories come alive. He conjures up a unique voice for each character in a given story, with each voice capturing the personality of that character perfectly. He put some real thought and effort into this, and his virtuosity was a pleasant surprise for me, if a bit over the top at times. I certainly could not say that he "phoned in" his narration, unless I were discussing the recorded sound itself. The distant, hollow, compressed audio quality literally sounds like something that was recorded over the phone onto an answering machine. It's awful compared to most other audiobooks I've heard, and frankly not acceptable. It really tainted my enjoyment of an otherwise impressive audiobook, and for that reason alone, I can only give this title 3 stars.

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