BRYAN ROZMAN

Pronunciation is important.

Revisado: 02-11-22

It speaks to credibility. It would seem that the good professor has had many experiences in the Hispanophonic world, but never picked up the basic rules of the language. The narrative was helpful, but she consistently stumbled on phrase in Spanish and especially place names, which made listening somewhat distracting. The historic city of Cádiz was particularly salient, where she repeatedly put the accent on the I instead of the a. An accent coach might help.

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The World is not an American Museum

Revisado: 05-14-21

This story was absolutely ludicrous. Normally, I treat myself to a book like this to escape some of the more dense, non-fiction I read, and Grisham´s books, traditionally, are engaging in that way. This book on the other hand, is wildly ill-informed about life in Italy and Europe in general. At one point making it sound like there are no poorly-dressed, nor fat people in all of Bologna (that´s definitely absurd for a place called "la grassa"). The plot´s texture resembled the result of someone who had once or twice been to Italy on a trip, maybe talked to an Italian friend, and perhaps has some peripheral understanding of how the U.S. government works. The author has then mashed it all together in a fantastical cast of poorly-articulated tropes. The low point of which was the seemingly endless Italian vocabulary review which apparently fascinated only the writer. It was a truly painful listen. I know it is physically impossible to put down an audiobook, but in this case I might just try.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 09-13-19

I found the book disappointing on many levels. This is perhaps by Mr. Bing’s intention, as the book channels a repetitive stream of USMC and general military leadership tropes, which can be like candy for so many in the target audience; so much so that in some places I thought I had restarted a previous chapter by mistake. Frankly, the book falls flat as an engaging biography of the man. As I had originally hoped for when I pre-ordered it, the book leaves me with little or no revelation about real tensions (political, personal and professional) the General experienced that exist at all levels of anyone’s military career. Even the Tommy Franks story left me asking why it was included, if not to explore it more deeply. I understand that through an editing process much is left unsaid (especially when unpacking 41 years of service), but this felt like a “wavecaps” PowerPoint presentation, where I have an indication of his thoughts on serving, reading and leading, but have no earthly idea who this man is when he’s not wearing his utilities. If that was the intention, kudos, if not, perhaps a future biographer might provide such details in works yet to come. That being said, I did take great pleasure in reliving many of my personal military experiences from the former Secretary’s perspective.

As a footnote, I fail to understand the comments on Mr. Campbell’s narration. It wasn’t an epic performance, but it certainly didn’t keep me from listening. Perhaps that’s a future technology solution for Amazon to explore where one can choose from a menu of automated or live narrators from Soupy Sales to 6ix9ine.

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Spain? Which part?

Revisado: 03-04-19

First, it is clear that this particular effort mirrors those of previous Dan Brown storylines. What is not clear is where Dan got his information on how Spain's government and aristocracy is structured, in comparison to the government, among many other quaint interpretations of Spanish society in general. A scheming bishop and a foolish king, working from the most brightly lit shadows possible, keep an American from spilling the beans on "the truth," about sums it up. Either way, all characters seem two-dimensional at best, and resolve little that can't be predicted by the reader within the first few chapters. Finally, anyone with even minor knowledge of the Capetian dynasty would raise an eyebrow to a royal heir named "Julian." Beyond the plot, the performance, which seemed challenged by pronunciation of words throughout the reading, could have been edited to avoid distracting and obvious pronunciation errors.

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Spanish?

Revisado: 11-19-15

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I certainly would recommend reading the book. An insightful and interesting foray into the mechanics of Iberian statecraft in the middle ages.

How could the performance have been better?

Tim Lundeen was a bad choice to read this book. Firstly, the mispronunciation of almost every town, village and hamlet in Spain was excruciating and intrusive to the listening experience. Second, his delivery resembled a machine translation much like my car's navigation software with little or no sympathy for nuance in the writing. I'm not saying that you should get Tony Flags (Antonio Banderas) to read a dense history tome, just find someone who knows simple pronunciation and orthography rules. I would liken the 10 or so hours I spent with Tim to how I imagine it would be listening to Don Quixote, narrated by Wilford Brimley.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas