Alex

Even better than the hype

Revisado: 12-19-23

I've read a couple of different translations of The Odyssey, and I have the audio version of the Fitzgerald translation. This might sound like a cliche, but I don't know how else to put it, in this version the text really seems like a living thing. Sometimes with these kinds of texts you have the feeling you're reading them because you ought to. This isn't like that at all, it's amazing. You feel a human connection with the people in the story.

Wilson's Iliad is terrific as well, but I think this one is a little better, mostly because there are more women in the Odyssey, and it's the women who seem most different in this translation.

Claire Danes's performance fits the story and the translation perfectly, I'm sure she had a lot to do with how well this works. The performance is never flashy, it never calls attention to itself, but it's pretty intense. The whole thing is very direct and intense.

There's a long essay (3+ hours!) about The Odyssey at the beginning. If you're not familiar with the story, you might want to skip ahead to the actual poem first,then go back and listen to the essay and the translator's notes, it might make more sense. But I found it to be very valuable.

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How Quentin Tarantino thinks about movies

Revisado: 11-03-22

I'm only about halfway through, but I like this book so much I wanted to write a review now.

This book is incredible, and I feel lucky to have been able to hear it. If it were just a series of takes on various films it would still be terrific, but I think it's more than that. As you move through the book, it becomes clear that what you're really getting is a window into how Tarantino thinks about genre films, how he breaks them down. It's like listening to someone who understands chess describe the board, again and again, with different layouts.

One of the thing that jumps out at me is the difference between these genre films and today's big IP franchises. The genres allow for a lot of freedom to move around and change things up, which is missing in today's franchise system. And I really liked what he said about various incarnations of the Parker character, about Peckinpah's relationship to the studios and to genre films, about Steve McQueen.

I feel like I'm picking up the vocabulary to describe why I like the films that I do, and a new way of thinking about a lot of great films from the 70s.

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Really terrific

Revisado: 12-14-21

This book is culled from diaries, which makes it a little different. It doesn't have a strong shape, so you just sort of spend time adrift in the text, hanging out with Sedaris. But he's a lot of fun, and it's hard to think of someone else I'd rather do that with.

The most important arc in the diaries is probably about Sedaris's relationship with his father. It's complicated, sometimes sad, and writing about it strikes me as a brave thing to have done.

I also liked the narration quite a bit. It's split between Sedaris and Tracey Ullman. Sometimes it seems like Ullman creates a voice that completely encapsulates a fully formed character in just a line or two of dialogue. It's kind of amazing.

In any event, I enjoyed this quite a bit, and if you buy it, I hope you will as well.

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Great history of American comedy

Revisado: 02-16-20

If you're interested in the history of American comedy, I'm sure you'll love this book. It's a great combination of interesting stories and anecdotes about individual people and a solid explanation of the larger arc of American comedy as a whole. We spend a lot of time watching or listening to comedy, but most of us don't know very much about it. This book fills in some of the gaps.

I usually don't write reviews here, but a lot of people here have complained about the performance. The comments were so negative I hestitated before buying the book. But I'm glad I did buy it, and I wanted to encourage people who might have doubts to give it a chance.

It's true that Nesteroff isn't a professional voice actor isn't a particularly gifted mimc. But the book is read clearly and is not at all difficult or unpleasant to listen to. It's fine. it really is. And if you're interested in the subject, you should buy it, because it contains information you're not going to find anywhere else.

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