Jessica

Good book annoying reader

Revisado: 05-02-25

I put off listening to this for almost a year because the reader is so annoying. Sorry but it’s true.

She puts on an over the top Mario Brothers accent every time she quotes an Italian Pope. But then she comically mispronounces common Italian words.

Think I’m exaggerating? She mispronounces the Italian word Church throughout the entire book — a book about the Catholic Church!

To be fair it’s not just this narrator. It happens a lot.

Please, for the love of God, could authors or publisher give narrators a cheat sheet so they pronounce things correctly?

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Great book poor recording

Revisado: 04-05-24

I loved this book in the 80s and it’s still great now. But they really need to fix the recording! I am struggling to keep going because although the reader reads well he has a gross habit of audibly swallowing his spit every few minutes! Either they need a better trained reader or the ru need to edit out the spot swallowing. It’s deeply unpleasant and once you hear it you can’t unhear it!

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Brilliant portrait of a narcissistic family

Revisado: 07-09-21

Anyone who grew up in a narcissistic family needs to read this because they will finally see they are not alone. And anyone who was lucky enough NOT to grow up in a family like this needs to understand that this is the fundamental structure of these families. There is always a scapegoat. There is always a golden child. And the power of the narcissist comes precisely from instilling terror in both children: the scapegoat it terrified of the nightmare getting worse. And the other children are terrified that they could slip and become the scapegoat.

Ironically it’s often a strong, talented, independent child who becomes the scapegoat — and the weak and flawed child who becomes the narcissistic parent’s artificially propped up “vanity project.”

So many details ring true here, from the casual dinner table bullying of siblings to the consequence free (and often tacitly encouraged) disrespect to the submissive/enabling parent.

Amazing book. Those who complain it’s about Fred Trump are missing the point. And those who wrote it off as dissatisfied whining … well sometimes people reveal themselves without realizing it. And let’s leave it at that.

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Great book - but why no Irish reader???

Revisado: 12-17-19

Seriously guys! Edmund Burke was one of the most famous native Gaelic speaking Irishmen ever. His flamboyant Brogue and his red-headed temper were both notorious. So why would you hire a bored upper class sounding English dude to record this book?

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esto le resultó útil a 12 personas

Terrible reading of a great book!

Revisado: 03-15-12

How could the performance have been better?

I love Trollope and am usually not at all picky about the performances of recorded books, but I found this reading of The Warden unbearable! Simon Vance adopts a strange, high-pitched, affected tone of voice every time he reads the women's lines that makes Trollope's female characters come across as gross caricatures. The gentle but always intelligent Eleanor Harding sounded like a half-witted flirt, Mrs. Grantly sounded like a snooty society matron instead of a sensible clergyman's wife, and the love scenes were absolutely painful! Mr. Vance is a very good reader generally, and if only he could have rendered the female characters in a more natural tone of voice this would have been a fine and worthy reading. I switched to the Timothy West reading for the remainder of the Basetshire Chronicles, and am so glad I did. I really don't think I could have stood a simpering Mary Thorne!!

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Interesting insight into Lynch's creative process

Revisado: 10-11-10

I listened to this because I'm interested in using meditation to help alleviate writer's block. I found it useful for that purpose. And it was a lot of fun to hear a director whose films I love talk about the process of making them. On the other hand, a lot of this book consists of Lynch's sincere but somewhat naive promotion of the Transcendental Meditation movement. I quickly started feeling like he was trying to sell me something. And I definitely winced on his behalf when he started explaining that physicists "have discovered a Unified Field" underlying all of reality. The Unified Field Theory, as anyone who's had a college physics course knows perfectly well, is the Holy Grail of theoretical physics. But despite the grandiose sounding name, all it means is the ability to mathematically describe the force of gravity in terms of quantum mechanics. It's just an equation. That equation hasn't been discovered yet. And if and when it is, it will not introduce some new "unified field" underlying all of creation. It will just let us describe very large and very small events in the same mathematical language. Any copy editor worth his or her salt should have caught this mistake long before the book went to press, and it's just plain embarrassing that it made it into the audiobook. There was a lot of this kind of stuff scattered through the book though. Maybe it's just standard California New Age nonsense, but it definitely left me feeling like the kool-aid factor in TM was way to high for me. I still want to pursue meditation -- but this book made it clear that the transcendental meditation movement is not the place I want to do it. That said, if you love Lynch's films or if you are a working artist or writer, this book gives some really interesting insights into Lynch's creative process. You just have to take the TM stuff with a grain of salt, I guess ....

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