Peter S. Zaas

Great writing, horrible narration

Revisado: 08-20-18

Kurlansky is a genius researcher and writer, the only reason I was able to endure the atrociously bland narrator. (Lots of mispronunciations of foreign words, too.)

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Who proofreads these productions?

Revisado: 07-28-15

This is a novel I know well, and I enjoyed listening to it as an audiobook. But Mr. Abbey's narration is curiously bad. I say "curiously," because his ability to create characterizations--his vocal acting--is among the best I've heard in the many (very many!) books I've heard from Audible. But his pronunciation of non-English words, especially words in Hebrew, Yiddish, and French, but also in German and Latin ("cum laude" is pronounced as two syllables in the 2nd word, "come laow-day") and including a number of relatively familiar names (the last name of the famous Secretary of State was "Dull-uhs" not "Dulls") is just terrible. This is particularly a problem with words from the Jewish tradition in Hebrew and Yiddish, where Mr. Abbey mangles every single synagogue name, every Hebrew phrase, and almost every Yiddish word. Since these words are so important in establishing the central character, and since Mr. Abbey is such a terrific actor, the listener finds himself wondering why Barney Panovsky, the narrator (who is, after all, concerned that he's losing his mind) has suddenly lost the ability to pronounce the words of his own tradition properly! These are really mangled; take the word of this old language teacher, and they harm the experience of listening to the book.

I don't know much about the production of audiobooks, but there is usually a producer listed, and I imagine it's the producer's job to proofread, or proof-listen, or whatever you call it. In a book with a heavy sprinkling of foreign-language words, it's essential to find out how these words are pronounced, and to let your actor/narrator know when he's made an error. If you want help with this, in all of the languages covered by the book, call me. (I'm not looking for work, really, but would like my Audiobooks not to be ruined by sloppy production). Otherwise, please find a way to correct these errors. Audible usually gets this right, but not here.

I look forward to listening to more books read by Mr. Abbey, who has beautiful English diction. But he needs help here!

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Ingenious, eye-opening mystery, very poorly read.

Revisado: 02-25-15

The Axeman's Jazz is an ingenious and provocative portrait of post-World-War-One New Orleans; the mystery is good and the characters, who range across the entire spectrum of New Orleans society avoid stereotyping. Everyone with an interest in the contemporary charms of this great city should read this novel set in its past.

Everyone should read this, but it is seriously unfortunate how poorly Christopher Ragland reads it. Clearly a book like this is a genuine challenge to any reader; there are a dozen or more main characters, and several times that secondary characters, and each has a distinctive accent, nationality, country of origin, speech pattern. Mr. Ragland simply does ot display that chops to pull this off; when he reads in his natural voice, he is clear and easy to listen to, but when he tries to read in the voice of the women, or Irishmen or Italians, or the Creoles or Cajuns with whom this book is so well-populated he just fails to portray anything believable. His rendition of the African-American male characters isn't as jarring. I suspect this is just a casting problem; the actor just lacks training in all of these accents; I haven't heard any of his other readings, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy a different audiobook if he were reading it. Lots of pronunciation errors, too. Doesn't anyone proof-listen to these books, anyone who knows how to pronounce words like "banquette"?

A poor reading performance really mars a terrific novel.

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