smarmer

Master and Margarita meets The Moon is a Harsh Mistress meets King Arthur

Revisado: 04-10-25

The best part of the insightful book is the depiction of the evil empire and it’s serpent like way to deceive and disguise.
That it took divine intervention and magic to defeat it is in itself a sobering lesson.
The narrator was excellent and kept the flow going well.
Listen was worth the time.

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Blunt recounting of life as writer and director.

Revisado: 05-21-24

Lots of fun gossip but also a thoughtful journey through creativity and it’s obstacles. Exceptionally well written. Enjoy

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Great story of personal redemption

Revisado: 11-28-23

Balanced and loving; unsparingly honest and open. It is about him and his generation and our choices for our future.

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When Hollywood loved America

Revisado: 02-23-18

What a difference a generation makes. The five directors written about here -- Frank Capra, John Houston, George Stevens, William Wyler, and John Ford -- all interrupted their careers to serve during World War II. Mostly they documented the fighting, at great personal danger to themselves. William Wyler lost his hearing flying in bombers. George Stevens, who specialized in directing comedies prior to the war, could no longer do comedies afterward.

Besides simply documenting battles they also investigated the psychological trauma of war (Houston) and filmed the liberation of the concentration death camps (Stevens).

Those were clearly different times. When these directors, along with such other heroes as Ted Williams (pilot during WW II and Korea -- giving up the prime years of his baseball career) or Yogi Berra (part of the Normandy invasion), or Clark Gable saw that the country was in trouble, they stepped forward.

What different times we live in today, sad to say.

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Interesting study of Genghis Khan

Revisado: 02-23-18

A very good recounting of the conquests of Genghis Khan and the impact that had on Asia and Europe. Very good but not necessarily memorable.

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Amazing contemporary Russian magic realism

Revisado: 02-23-18

This is a book written in a non-linear style, moving back and forth between realism and fantasy. It is simultaneously a critique of Communism and atheism in general and Stalinism and the cultural decline in the USSR on the other.

It moves back and forth between contemporary Russia and Judea at the time of Jesus. It could be viewed as the story of the conscience of Pontius Pilate, the degradation of writers and poets under Stalin, the insanity (literally) of life under Communism, the temptations of Satan, the redeeming quality of true love, and/or the compromises all of us make reconciling our desires with our best selves.

Instead of offering spoilers, or writing a lengthy plot summary and guide to the disjointed parts of the story, I will simply urge readers and listeners to stick with the story even when it seems to be drifting incoherently. It will all come together in a profound and meaningful way.

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One of the best Sci-Fi books ever.

Revisado: 02-23-18

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is really a meditation about love, what it is to be a true human, what kind of society permits and fosters freedom and creativity, and how it is sometimes possible to overcome great odds to triumph over tyranny.

It is hard to summarize the plot. I will just say that the relationship between the human and the computer becomes more intimate and real and emotionally authentic than anything found on the earth of the novel.

The reader was absolutely outstanding.

Take my word for it, if you can, and listen to this masterpiece.

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Greatest novel ever!!!

Revisado: 02-23-18

I read The Brothers Karamazov during the summer between my junior and senior year of college, and it had a profound influence on me. Incidentally, it was the Magarshak translation that came in a two volume paperback edition published by Penguin Books that I took with me on a trip to Europe.

I returned to the same translation on Audible and found the book even better than when I had read it decades earlier. The subtle interchanges between and among characters, the philosophical issues of human evil, the legal system, the contradictory emotional states that lurch people from one pole to another, the role of true and false religion, the brilliance and simultaneous impoverishment of Ivan's dry secularism that verges on nihilism, Dimitry's hedonistic excesses that also verges on nihilism. Smerdyakov is the one who goes all the way to nihilism.

Only Alyosha averts nihilism, but in doing so he leaves behind an all-encompassing religion for one that exists outside the monastery in the presence of children whom he attempts to comfort in the face of the death of their classmate.

The book is far more than my brief summary could convey. Read it or listen to it. One of the great artistic products ever produced.

As to the narrator, yes, in his effort to be more conversational he does have an occasional uneven cadence, but I enjoyed his reading. Don't hesitate to try this version because of the comments of those who didn't like him.

Take your pick: Magarshack translation or Garnett; British or American; male or female. In any choice you will be listening to one of the greatest novels ever written.

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Excellent course on Europe's worst plague

Revisado: 02-23-18

Bubonic plague wiped out between 30-40% of the population of Europe. The events of the middle and late 1400's thus changed the entire direction of culture, of property, of economy, and even of religion.

This course is an outstanding overview of that scourge.

Professor Dorsey Armstrong is a superlative teacher. I have listened to several of her other courses as well. "Take the professor, not the course," applies here. On any topic she addresses, she is worth listening to.

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What you don't hear in the news

Revisado: 02-23-18

David Horowitz knows the American Left from the inside out. In this book he exposes the subterranean linkage between the American Left and Radical Islam.

The American Left (not American Liberals) seek to make radical changes in the West and are using Radical Islam as their temporary ally in that destruction. They have the fantasy that after the West is weakened or destroyed, they will triumph over Radical Islam.

Meanwhile, Radical Islam has a similar agenda with a similar fantasy.

How the Left, which claims to be liberal, can support Radical Islam, with its homophobia and its treatment of women and children is a mystery only understandable by grasping the essence of Horowitz' book.

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