P. Tracy

The tediousness of it all — and a bad audio performer.

Revisado: 01-07-25

So many pointless conversations, so many useless trips to and from ‘the house’, so many repetitive descriptions of the key characters that never added up,to depth, and such biased treatment of the women ( was this written in the 1950’s?). The narrator barely distinguished some of the characters in conversation, and the accent given to Routledge wandered around many counties and quite a few rungs of the social ladder. I discovered this series with a volume much later in the lineup, that was pretty good, so I may try more if there’s a different performer. But perhaps they are all twice as long in words as in actual story development, which would be a shame.

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Addictive

Revisado: 05-18-24

This was witty, and profound. Totally compelling as an audiobook. (One of the few i’ve ever had that did not frustrate me because of ‘ filler’ I wanted to skim.). The vocal performance was superb. As a historian, I appreciated the lack of anachronisms combined deftly with a tone that doesn’t try to be Edwardian.

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Good overview of very selective aspects of the history

Revisado: 06-14-23

Overall, this was very interesting, because I’m a retired historian of a very different field who has an amateur’s interest in this era and place. Presentation was good, despite the operatic sighing and the very partisan use of nicknames for some of the major personages. I was surprised that a professor with these credentials can’t help himself from saying ‘climactic’ when he means ‘climatic’, and some mispronunciations of words he ought to know well. My major disappointment was that in all these lectures, not only no real analysis of the content of medieval religious philosophy, but not a word about music or any of the arts. Surely a few minutes could have been taken out of the weirdly obsessive catalogue of the minor differences of rules among different monastic orders, to offer at least a glance at other issues. And it did appear that women had no history in this period — an approach that was passé even when I was a student in the 1970’s!!

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Great story, great food, weird accents

Revisado: 01-10-23

This is my first ‘Bruno’ in any form, and I’m hooked. I know that region and love the food in the story. But the narrator, while fine on many of the voices, gets very weird sometimes. The elderly art expert sounds like Winston Churchill, and Pamela sounds like one of Graham Chapman’s old ladies from Monty Python (especially jarring, or hilarious, in the seduction scene). So I’d love more audiobooks n this series, but probably not from this reader.

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One interesting character

Revisado: 11-05-22

And a maddeningly dumb one. And both narrators like to analyze their own feelings over and over and over. The feelings don’t change, but in each iteration ( often multiple times per chapter), they repeat the same cliches over and over in slightly different words. This might have been a fun skim read, but a very tedious audio experience.

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Perfect for listening

Revisado: 09-01-15

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I knew Hilary Mantel from the Cromwell books (Wolf Hall may be the best writing I have ever read), so wanted to know more of her work. I recognize the autobiographical basis for this book, and found it very interesting -- well written, but the protagonist was so annoying in her naivete (real or pretended - couldn't tell) that she got on my nerves. But it was wonderful to have the audio version, because of the accents. I was even intrigued by the contrast between the protagonist's rather flat and un-nuanced descriptions of her surroundings and the (very stereotypical) people she meets and the delicate flavor and nuance that is supplied by the audio narrator's inflections. Don't think I would have liked this much if I read the print version, but enjoyed the audio very much.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Stupid question -- one doesn't rewrite a good writer's work. I had trouble determining the point of view being expressed: is the protagonist that dumb, or just playing dumb? -- she was a cartographer, has traveled the world, and in this setting she just sits around like a lump? -- are we meant to be seeing a bovine anger at being in Saudi or a woman who is suffering from serious depression from some other cause?. If the ending had been different (the mysterious upstairs turns out to be just a place for illicit sexual trysts), that might have cast a different light on the protagonist's previous process of deduction. But as it stands, this setting just seems like a very interesting place observed by a not very insightful visitor. Maybe this is the standard 'unreliable narrator' scheme, but this narrator (in the book, not the audio reader) reminded me of what my mother used to say when I crossed the room in front of the TV she was watching: 'you make a better door than a window.'

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Unbelievably tedious

Revisado: 09-01-15

What disappointed you about Speaks the Nightbird?

I am a historian of this period and of witchcraft, usually enjoy fictional treatments even if they're not historically accurate. But the first couple of hours of this were so excruciatingly drawn out -- every thing in the scene has to be described, with six adjectives and two adverbs -- and the story line already is so predictable (the travelers in the storm, the sinister tavern, the psychotic landlord -- good grief!!!) and overwrought for the introduction to the real story, that I gave up. The performance was fine, the problem was the book. I guess the original must be a thousand pages of words and about three pages of actual plot.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Not by this author!

What does Edoardo Ballerini bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He's pretty good with voices -- if the writing were worth hearing (had some meaning), I think I would enjoy his presentation.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas