Jim

Great Story

Revisado: 08-07-24

I didn't realize this is an abridged version, but I mainly got it based on the skills of the narrator, Will Patton. I can't say how much you miss by not listening to the unabridged audiobook, but I really enjoyed the story. Never read this before, but it's vintage Jack London.

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Insufferable

Revisado: 03-22-23

The main character, Ignatius, is insufferable. Literally, at least for me. I didn't find him funny at all. His commentary on life wasn't satire, for me it was more like narcissism. Being so self-centered, he had no perspective and no means to intelligently comment on culture and society.
When I compare this to really good satire like Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, or Kingsley Amis, it just doesn't measure up at all.
I got about two hours into the book, then read a synopsis to see if there was something I'd miss if I didn't finish. It didn't seem that I would, so I quit listening.
Many people have commented on the narration. I agree, it's not helpful at all. Perhaps a better narration would have made it better, who knows.
So many people like this book, I'm probably missing something. But it's hard to see.

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Leaves Nothing to the Imagination

Revisado: 01-16-22

Ignatian Contemplation invites the praying person to use their imagination to enter more deeply into a Gospel passage. Oftentimes it helps if the person guiding the meditation asks questions to stir the praying person's imagination. They often invite the praying person to become one of the characters in the Gospel scene. These reflections, though, are so detailed in their description of what's happening that they leave nothing to the imagination. There's no room for the listener to come up with their own thoughts about what might be going on in the story. And these reflections often take on more than one perspective in the story, like an omniscient narrator who is able to get into the mind of multiple characters. So it's not at all what I was expecting or hoping for. While it might help people enter more deeply into the Gospel stories, it didn't work for me at all.
The reader was okay, but he had an annoying habit of putting undue accent on the first syllable of many words. He also mispronounced several words, some repeatedly. It indicates potentially a lack of familiarity with Ignatian Contemplation and the Scriptures.

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Lots of Judgment Inserted, Terrible Narration

Revisado: 12-31-19

The book is okay, although the author inserts too much judgment about what he sees in history and what's going on today. Throughout the story is the question "Are we really better off today than primitive humans?" His answer, it seems, would be "No."
The inference from listening to him is that the world is overcrowded, and we would be a lot better off if we didn't have so many people.
I am all for preserving our planet, its resources, and the other animals with whom we share it. I've actually started eating much less meat since finishing the book.
Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way is the way he dismisses any kind of religious belief as pure imagination and make believe. Just because there are some false religious beliefs out there doesn't mean that they are all false. And who can pronounce in just what ways God might reveal God-self to people?
This was possibly the worst narration I've come across from Audible. A couple of examples: he pronounced Descartes as "Dez-CAR-tez". Really? And Descartes famous saying "cogNito, ergo sum?" Toward the end of the book, as he speaks of the value of this kind of anthropological analysis, he said "it cannot be UNDERrated." I'm guessing that's not what was in the original text. Otherwise, there is a lot of information packed into the audiobook, and it would have been better if he would have slowed down a little bit and not been so staccato in his delivery.

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Bending the Gospel to Fit the Author's View

Revisado: 04-16-19

I started out liking this audiobook. The author had some nice insights on the Gospel from his Zen Buddhist perspective, to which I am open. But as it went on, he said more and more things which simply do not square with the Christian view. I quit listening after the 9th Chapter, but up to that point I can only once recall the author speak about love, and that one time was in a context that wasn't really about loving God or others. Instead he spoke of "enlightenment" and coming to a "still point". I understand the importance of these pursuits, but to take the message of Jesus and focus only on them is just wrong. It would be too easy for someone to pursue enlightenment with an attitude of "it's all about me," which is totally antithetical to the Christian way of life.
One point that clinched my feelings on this book came when he spoke of our relationship with God, and minimized the importance of it. Love of God is the greatest commandment in the Judeo-Christian tradition! Our relationship with the Triune God is the most important thing to a Christian! Then he spoke of how wrong the Nicene Creed is for saying that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God and that all of us fit into that category. He also said that the mystics of the Middle Ages supported his view. If he really understood the Middle Age mystics he would know that they stayed true to the Creed in all of their works. It appears he really doesn't understand what the Creed means when it says this.
He also talks about the importance of faith, but faith in what? He is silent on this! For Jesus, it is faith in him, his great love for us, and his desire to share eternal life with us.
You just can't cherry-pick the Gospel and bend it to fit your view of things. You have to look at all of it.
This may be a good listen for someone who is into some kind of New Age religion or eastern mysticism, but just understand that it represents a very selective view of the Gospel and it misrepresents the whole story of Jesus.
The author's style is conversational and is very easy to listen to.

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Disappointed

Revisado: 01-28-19

I have already read The Divine Milieu and was hoping for something to give me a little more insight, but instead it was a brief and not helpful overview of the life and thought of Teilhard. The audiobook is a little over 2 hours, but Sister Deignan doesn't even start talking about the book until an hour into it. When she does, it's superficial. She gives but a brief mention of two of the book's main sections - divinisation of activities and divinisation of passivities. She throws in some other things like Eastern mysticism which, while valid and analogous to Teilhard's thought, weren't what I was wanting to hear.
I'm racking my brain on who might benefit from this audiobook, but can't come up with anyone. If you want a review of the life and thought of Teilhard, the audiobook by Goergen (Teilhard de Chardin's Cosmic Christology and Christian Cosmology) is much better. If you want some insight into The Divine Milieu, then the subject audiobook isn't the place.
Sister Deignan has a slow, deliberate, and emotional delivery which was distracting and didn't really help me follow what she was saying.

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Grim, well-written story with fantastic narration

Revisado: 01-26-19

This is a spell-binding novel. The action is grim, and you can sense and follow the main character's descent into nihilism. The story takes you from Vietnam to Los Angeles and back to Vietnam, following a South Vietnamese officer who is really a mole for the North. The man truly is a sympathizer, with sympathetic attachments to both the Communist East and the Democratic West. But who can blame him, he came into the world with a dual identity. Throughout the novel, he struggles with whether he is half of something or twice something. If you don't understand what I'm trying to say, you soon will if you listen to the book.

In the end, there is plenty to criticize in both Communism and Democracy. Basically, both ideologies collapse when the people who govern become more interested in gaining and keeping power than seeking the common good of all.

The narrator is perfect in his pace and with his measured emotions, reflecting the nature of the mostly Vietnamese characters.

This was a really good listen!

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Grim, well-written story with fantastic narration

Revisado: 01-26-19

This is a spell-binding novel. The action is grim, and you can sense and follow the main character's descent into nihilism. The story takes you from Vietnam to Los Angeles and back to Vietnam, following a South Vietnamese officer who is really a mole for the North. The man truly is a sympathizer, with sympathetic attachments to both the Communist East and the Democratic West. But who can blame him, he came into the world with a dual identity. Throughout the novel, he struggles with whether he is half of something or twice something. If you don't understand what I'm trying to say, you soon will if you listen to the book.

In the end, there is plenty to criticize in both Communism and Democracy. Basically, both ideologies collapse when the people who govern become more interested in gaining and keeping power than seeking the common good of all.

The narrator is perfect in his pace and with his measured emotions, reflecting the nature of the mostly Vietnamese characters.

This was a really good listen!

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Better than the movies made from it

Revisado: 07-18-18

I really liked this book - very entertaining. Darker than the two movies made from it ("The Omega Man" w/ Charlton Heston and "I Am Legend" w/ Will Smith, both of which I enjoyed very much), and the plot twists and turns are much more unexpected than those of the movies. The book has a somewhat darker, but for me a more satisfying ending.

The narrator does a very good job of bringing out the anguish the protagonist must face in his solitude and his struggle to survive.

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Just another self-help book, nothing new to offer

Revisado: 04-08-18

I really don't understand all of the hoopla over this book. The 12 Rules are absolutely nothing new. Like Rule 6 (Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world) - this is the same thing as "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks". Some of his stories are interesting, while others are not, but I found very few of them inspiring. It obviously has been popular with a lot of people, but I just don't see it.
Before you buy this, first look at the 12 Rules themselves and see if they're something that would be new and fresh to you. If they're not, then I suggest trying something else for personal enrichment.

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