Patrick McCarthy

Finally someone who makes sense! until he says...

Revisado: 10-09-19

Let me start off by saying I'm a skeptic, and have become even more so after having done a deep dive into many authors from this genre. I'm a skeptic of the genre as a whole, and have come around to Existentialism as a refreshing counterpoint to some many faux gurus, who seem to only be helping themselves at the expense of the vulnerable, telling the reader to do what they say in order to achieve happiness etc.
In contrast I believe Eckhart Tolle to be the real deal. I think this because what he says makes so much sense, is completely relatable and pertinent to my own experience in every way. This book as been transformational in the short term, as I have come to believe that my life's work is to transcend my ego, rather than to be a bigshot in the many ways that I had imagined due to the incredible control my ego has had over me. Only time will tell if it remains so.

I listen to it every morning on my way to work and it helps me to slow down, joyfully accept my present circumstances, be a better Dad and a better teacher. I miss it on the weekends and look forward to Monday so that I can get back into it. In my opinion, one way to distinguish between the fake gurus and the legitimate purveyors of wisdom is the extent to which it comes through as genuine and relatable, as opposed to sounding like a never ending exercise in trickster talk, babble from the tower of Babel. I am (obviously) a new devotee of Tolle and happy to be. As I said in the beginning, he is the real deal.

(Addendum)
Of course as soon as I write a review of Tolle, lauding his New Earth book and by extension him as the “real deal” he launches into some broad-stroke generalizations that have no context in which to ground them, as well as wildly questionable and borderline offensive remarks about the pain body and it’s relation to; women and their periods, the middle east and its population’s propensity for violence,(all of them apparently, and this is not to mention that violence that has been wrought on them by the West) childbirth, rape and torture in the same sentence as a reason for women’s pain bodies, women not being as egoic, women being subjugated because of the ego that fought for primacy in man, Jews having a particularly dense collective pain body because of all their suffering, (apparently nobody else suffered) Canada, Australia and Switzerland being higher vibration countries due to lack of a history of violence, which when looked at through the lens of aboriginal extermination in both Australia and Canada is a totally preposterous and borderline racist statement, a bunch of other stuff that it sounds like he thought up on a big cushy chair in a room far away from any concrete, most likely many stories above those whose feet still had to touch the earth.

I am withholding ultimate judgement, and my conclusion of late that you take what speaks to you and don’t get caught up in the messenger, is being newly affirmed. But whoa dude, chill. You sound like you’ve bought your own hype as the incarnation of the savior, which as anyone could tell you, is when you know you’re not it. I will continue to listen and add one more paragraph of review when I’m finished. Because despite the above, I have still gained immeasurably from the finer details in the first four chapters of this book. But he should stick with the details and steer away from the armchair hypotheses…

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Opportunism at its best (worst)

Revisado: 09-23-19

After reading rave reviews about how this book will change your life etc. I was excited to see what it had to impart and finally started this book, after having it on my shelf for many years. I read the first half and listened to the second half. It started off telling me what I wanted to hear, as a counterpoint to self help (that it is up to the individual to decide the meaning of things, personal responsibility, self-determinism) and as such falling in line with an existentialist slant that I've been on as that counterpoint to the self-help genre, which I've found of late to be populated by mostly hucksters, (ultimately helping themselves at the expense of vulnerable people) . The first half moved me, the stories, the unimaginable situation people found themselves in, their bravery in the face of certain death at an uncertain date, and I found his pyscho-analysis of the various approaches to the situation compelling, but even in the first half some little canaries were making themselves known. And then the second half, heavily cited with articles and texts that affirmed his logotherapy, a self-congratulatory tone in anecdotes of people that were miraculously healed by two deftly asked questions as to their view on losing a child, or all their children and wife. This led to what came across as a bunch of psychobabble, especially given that the above two factors had started to arouse my skepticism. At the end he quotes a fellow logoanalyst as saying all we can do is examine the lives of those who have seemed to find the meaning to life, as opposed to those who haven't, which was not only completely counter to his entire thesis, but also wreaked of the same swill that the glut of self-help gurus had been pushing. So I looked him up. Turns out his life in the camp was very different from how it was portrayed (note the audible summary at the top, 'spent YEARS in...',) In reality he was encamped for five months rather than five years, not at Auschwitz at all, but rather in a low-level camp where he was employed as a psycho-hygienist (the term itself another indicator of things not quite right in the book, being very Nazi soundingand apparently adopted by logotherapy from Nazi psychoanalytic practice) In essence, given these revelations, it seems as though he was an opportunist, studying his fellow prisoners to elucidate an already-established theory so as to validate it. In this light he would seem to have greatly diminished, while at the same time profiting off of the very real suffering of millions, and thus just another shill. That is not to say that his theories do not contain some elements that may resonate with some. One bright spot was that I found that all his anecdotes about prisoners could easily be correlated to people who are not the victims of such horror, but who nonetheless suffer from similar hopelessness. That's why I gave the story 2 stars. But ultimately it falls short on me in light of all of this, and leads me to the conclusion that you must figure it out yourself, taking bits and pieces from all these people perhaps but not adopting it wholeheartedly. I find it strange that not one review before mentioned any of this.

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esto le resultó útil a 42 personas

Great book but the narrator doesn't fit

Revisado: 09-18-19

As the title of this review says, narrator is a bit to wry for the subject matter. I think it'a a great book but the machine-gun voice loses me. I'll go back to reading it for myself

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One of my favorites yet.

Revisado: 08-31-19

I loved this book and am a big Lama Surya Das fan after having read and listened to it. I love that he narrates it himself. Makes it very personal and relatable, and no guessing on how to convey it. It's his truth and he shares it with easy sincerity.

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Great book, lots of fun.

Revisado: 08-31-19

I loved this book and it edified me on so much that I was only vaguely aware. Cahill has a gift for storytelling, melding sometimes confusing and disparate historical details into a unified and entertaining tale. True of not, who knows. TO be honest though, I actually got a lot more from reading this than listening. A bit too much inflection for me to be able to pay close attention to the content. I may give it another chance though, now that I've read it. I do like a bit a the brogue after all. Takes me home.

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So glad Pollan narrated this

Revisado: 08-31-19

He feels like an old friend telling you a very personal, in-depth story. I also listened to Botany of Desire for awhile, but the narrator sounded like he was on drugs, so I decided to read it instead. (Also a fantastic book) His research is thorough and his writing is magic in that it takes complicated subject matter and makes it accessible and entertaining. I will listen to this one again. I would recommend that audible enlist Pollan in narrating all of his own books.

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Nobody reads Joyce like Jim Norton

Revisado: 08-31-19

As I've said before, the narrator makes or breaks an audible experience and Jim Norton is always the best, The vast array of voices he is able to convey brings the book alive and at times makes it more comprehensible, (in the case of Ulysses) than it may otherwise have been. I purchased portrait with a different narrator first, and teh inflection rove me away after the first five minutes. So I had to find the one read by this fellow alone. As always, fantastic. As for the the book itself, I am Joyce's biggest fan so what can I say? Loved it.

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Thorough analysis and Fantastic narration

Revisado: 03-06-19

My favorite of all the Great Courses series. Heffernan invites the listener to join him on an odyssey of discovery with the requisite level of enthusiasm that the adventure demands, and without which it might have failed. The depth of analysis is thorough, and the structure, a comparison of the modern classic to Homer's original, is enlightening. This is the ideal of the college class you wish you had taken, taught by a professor whose wit, extensive knowledge, and contagious joy makes you want to stay for more long after the class has ended. The length to which Heffernan goes to elucidate pertinent details of Irish history, Joyce's personal history, the context in which Ulysses was written, so much more, makes this one of those gems that start off about one thing and end up about everything, as a great work should. In this way, this series of lectures mimics the book itself. It goes without saying that this is not the ultimate analysis, there a other interpretations of key aspects of the book that are not touched on here. However, so many analyses are synthesized here that it makes one feel as though any unmentioned must not be credible. I have listened to this more times than I can count, and will again, in pursuit of a thorough understanding of this iconic work.

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Narrator is simpy

Revisado: 01-23-19

Narration makes or breaks a book on here, and this narrator has dealt a death blow to my ability to listen to this, even though what I've heard so far has been interesting and informative. If someone was trying to imitate a person wetting their adult diaper while reading, it would sound like this.

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This narration brings it alive

Revisado: 01-23-19

Jim Norton is a master. He embodies the amazingly broad range of voices in Ulysses as well as anyone could be asked to do. He literally has a different voice for every character. Some passages, like the end of Chapter 2, brought my wife to tears for its sheer beauty. I will listen to this many times over. Best, I finally feel like I fully understand this book. This is what audible was made for. To bring to life words that are meant to be read aloud and felt..

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