Mordy Hurwich-Kehat

The life behind, and within, the music

Revisado: 01-29-25

I liked what I always like about Robert Greenberg - his erudition, his eloquence, his humor and his not being shy about expressing his opinion.
I listened to this in parallel to reading Edmund Morris's biography of Beethoven, which I learned here was one of the three main sources Greenberg leaned on, in composing this biography. if I were to listen to it again, I would do so in parallel to listening to various compositions of Beethoven's, in time with the progress of the story.

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Barbra fully exposed

Revisado: 07-13-24

I liked Streisand's conversational, improvisational narration from the inside of her storied life and career.
I was duly impressed with the scope of her endeavors, talents and accomplishments, in defiance of many who would supposedly know better than she. Yet I liked her less and less, as she came across in what she chose to tell, and in it's telling. Her attempts to demonstrate her knowledge, her modesty, her generosity, graciousness, and appreciation of others' contributions, revealed how unaware she is of the much she doesn't know; how boastful, mean-spirited, and miserly she is.
Not unexpectedly, It all came to a head in the chapter on the making of Yentl, when as director, she let all that I found distasteful loose.
So I put the book aside before completing the chapter, satisfied that I had become sufficiently acquainted with Barbra.
You know?

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Rings and resonates within, clear and true

Revisado: 05-26-24

“In him, too, was despair, from the sorrow that soldiers turn to hatred, in order that they may continue to be soldiers.”

This is the stuff for which a Nobel prize in literature is rightfully earned.
This novel has it all: an important, well-told story, brimming with richly-developed, complex characters; local, personal and global context; and profound, worldly observations and opinions.
All of which is enhanced by Campbell Scott's superb performance.

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This is a major motion pictureless masterpiece

Revisado: 04-16-24

This is not a book.
It's a movie without the picture - not counting the accompanying, underlying comic book.
Pity those who read the printed edition, rather than listen to the audio.
Every one of the characters was developed to the hilt, and was a pleasure to follow. For most of the ride, you're on a movie set, absorbing the dynamics, the language, the human interactions, the pressure, the humor, the genius of the production.
Thank you, Tom Hanks, for proving yet again that you're every bit the artist off the screen as you are on it, and for the great service you've done your craft by educating us in it,

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Work-life balance of intimacies

Revisado: 04-16-24

I'm not a dictator or defense lawyer, so this book challenged my guy-compromised EQ.

I loved Kitamura's writing, and the studied reflection she lent her protagonist on the intimacies of her work, social and love relationships. But the intimacies aren't just interpersonal, rather also with her sense of home in the city, her identity in the world at large, and with language, (See David Bellos' "Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything.")

I saw that some reviewers were unhappy with the narration, for what they described as its being monotonous. Similarly, readers noted the minimal punctuation in the printed book. I suggest that both are related to the protagonist's work as a court translator, in which she is expected to dryly convey the meaning of the speech, without adding any emotion of her own. I think Kato-Kiriyama struck the perfect balance in doing so in her narration.

Thank you, Yael, for this different reading experience.

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A focused, intimate introduction to Churchill

Revisado: 04-03-24

The WW2 and Churchill bibliography is rich with rotund, weighty tomes - most notably among them, Churchill's own works.
I liked that the narrow focus of this storybook, on the formative first year of Churchill's premiership, allowed it to drill quite deep into the characters of Churchill and his inner circle within a relatively brief telling.
I very much enjoyed John Lee's aporopriately crisp, military-like narration, as I did his reading of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

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Whoa the great Jim Thorpe!

Revisado: 01-11-24

I'm grateful to David Maraniss for having done justice to, and informing us all of, Jim Thorpe's rich life story, and its Native American historical-political context. Better late than never, but yet a shame that Thorpe didn't live to experience the restoration of his medals - if not yet his Olympic record - and his rightful, place of honor in American history, and in our sentiments.
I found the story rich and interesting throughout, and Maraniss does a fine job narrating it as well.

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"Chemistry? Yeah, Chemistry!"

Revisado: 06-23-23

My mother and aunts were contemporaries of Elizabeth Zott, yet, contrary to her EZ mother, they were fortunate to have been raised by my Nana - who instilled in them "We can do it!", with a self-awareness of their Feminine Mystique - and my totally gets-it Grampa (as if he had a choice :-).
They all went on to feminist activism and leadership - particularly in the realm of Jewish Orthodox Feminism.
But, while fully aware that we're not yet where we should be regarding women's rights, and of the much that remains to be done, not until Lessons in Chemistry did I get a truly raw sense of just how terribly mysogynistic and predatory the general and religious environment in which my mother and aunts - to say nothing of their mother - grew up in, was.
So, Lessons in Chemistry is not just a great story. It's a six-course meal of lessons on love, education, science, healthy living, history and, yes, ... life.
The audio edition is wonderfully narrated by Miranda Raison, and Pandora Sykes' interview of Bonnie Garmus at supper's end is a delicious after-dinner treat.

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Light on stories, mostly pontification

Revisado: 03-01-23

The message and its narration - both by Yoyo Ma - resonate with the cello, and are therefore wonderful art. But I would have preferred to here more stories of his life and career, and less of his unoriginal

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How we got here

Revisado: 02-21-23

Jill Lepore is my gold standard for historiography.
Her scholarship is breathtaking, her research meticulous, her analysis brilliant, her writing eloquent and witty, and her narration truly a performance.
In These Truths, she draws together the various strands of inequality that stretch over our history, and that have now converged in the ultimate assault on what never were self-evident truths, and on the institutions of truth itself.

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