David

Reader difficult to hear

Revisado: 10-17-22

Enjoyable story and pure Christie--diverse characters coming together in an enclosed environment and, of course, a series of murders that pick them off one by one in rough correlation to a children's rhyme. Good stuff for Christie fans.

However, the narraration is difficult to hear and practically inaudible in parts. Much of the dialogue is delivered in low, soft mumbles. One character (the judge), has such an imperceptible little growl that it seems as if the reader is taunting the listeners and daring us to try to hear him. Parts of the non-dialog are cleanly delivered at a reasonable volume, but the character lines get dropped and buried again and again.

If you listen to audible books in your car and experience any type of road noise at all, you may find it hard to follow the story.

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Solid mob story; dreadful narration

Revisado: 10-19-19

I will admit that I could not finish this audio book.

This is a solidly plotted crime story, with a missing Russian language professor, a dead wise guy, and an FBI investigation into the connection between the mafia and the Russian mob. Aside from some rather tired tropes (the FBI agent team are a male/female duo with some sort of boring mutual attraction), the plot works pretty well. The occasional attempts at humor are weak ("I always thought Arnold Schwarzenegger was the missing link") but as an investigation-oriented piece it worked ok. The producers chose to have the authors co-narrate the book in alternating chapters,, with Bonanno reading the mafia stuff and Pistone reading the FBI investigatory chapters.

This was a mistake. The reading is awful. While Bonanno plods on well enough, Pistone's reading became unlistenable. I greatly admire Pistone as an FBI agent and his amazing real-life undercover work (as portrayed in the Donnie Brasco movie). He is clearly an intelligent, courageous and resourceful man. His sustained undercover work demonstrates his grit and prowess. He is a hero. But he should not narrate audio books.

At some point an editor should have nixed the idea of the authors recording the narration of this book. Pistone's stilted, stumbling reading becomes distracting and cringe-worthy. I do not understand why producers of these works allow authors to perform them-- it is a completely different talent, and most cannot do it.

I noticed that there is another audible version with a different reader. I recommend buying that one.

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Classic American Rabbit; some flaws

Revisado: 08-06-19

I always enjoy re-visiting Updike's iconic character Rabbit Angstrom and his supremely self-centered and mundane activities. Harry Angstrom is a dreadful person, driven entirely by his own selfish desires against a backdrop of equally flawed characters and a specifically narrow and atomically detailed landscape of American popular culture. Yet, Updike's genius is that he somehow draws the reader close to these characters so we continue to care what happens to them.


The performance itself is simply not up to the material. Morey has an odd way of putting the wrong inflections on his phrasing. Too often the prose and dialog completely mismatch the actual words. As just one of many examples, at one point Rabbit is playing golf with lifelong frenemy Ronnie Harrison, and the latter punctuates their conversation at the hole with "your honor." The obvious golf context of the use of "honor" is that Rabbit has earned the right to tee off first on the next hole (and yes, there is too much golf in this volume of the Rabbit series), but Morey pronounces it "your HON-or", as if addressing a judge in a court of law. This criticism sounds ridiculously nitpicky, but the cumulative effect of such gaffes detracts from the overall enjoyment of the work. This may well be an unfairly subjective criticism, but I found myself time and again thinking to myself "that's not how that part should sound," or "that's not how that character talks!". Personally, I find Morey to be a mismatch for the Rabbit series.


My other main issue with Morey's performance is his method of dealing with verbatim song lyrics with a monotone chant. This choice becomes glaring and cringeworthy in a work that is loaded with directly transcribed commercial jingles, children's songs (while sailing with his granddaughter), and the seemingly endless stretch of car radio tunes on Rabbit's long (long long long) solo drive down to Florida. I suppose that Morey did not want to actually sing (perhaps he cannot carry a tune?) but the effect of his one-note incantations is so wincingly awkward that I found myself swiping past them as soon as they popped up in the narratives.


I am a fan of Updike's Rabbit series and his hard-hearted, upper middle-class, photorealistic, uncharitably rendered characters. This is overall a satisfying read as a physical book, although there are some sections that were a bit bloated for my tastes (the aforementioned car radio jingle journey for example). However, Morey's work on this final edition of Harry Angstrom's is uninspired, careless, and distracting.

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Classic work. Awful narration

Revisado: 08-13-13

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

The book itself? Yes. Wilde is brilliant. He incorporates philosophical dimensions of hedonism, narcissism and egoism into a creepy gothic tale.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Not really relevant...the characters are multi-dimensional and interesting, but none are really likeable.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

In every way. Sand sounds like an adolescent who barely comprehends the words that he speaks. He murmurs and drops sentences. His flat midwestern accent is ridiculous for this work, especially when he is portraying the group of Brits sitting around discussing Americans.

He pronounces the word "extraordinary" as "extra-ordinary." Over and over. He sounds like a disinterested junior high student forced to read aloud from a textbook. One of the most ironic moments of the audiobook is when he describes Sybil's dreadful performance in her acting: He describes the horror of listening to the character's flat, artificial dead tones in her portrayal of a Shakespearian character. Meanwhile, we have to listen to the artificial, dead, artless, heartless performance of this classic work.

Sand's narrarion is hard to understand. He drops his voice at the end of sentences, so that the listener can hardly hear them.. He barely seems to understand the words that he reads. All of the characters have the same voice. At times, it seems that Sand can barely get through the text. He has a disinterested, squeaky, adolescent voice that has no chance of doing this work justice

This classic work deserves much better than this performance. Do not buy this edition of the audiobook.

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