RG

Ta-Nehisi Coates deserved better

Revisado: 07-30-20

Many other reviewers have described my main reaction. I'm a great fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates' work. His own narration of Between the World and Me was nothing short of superb. Joe Morton's reading of The Water Dancer was extraordinary as well. Beresford Bennett's attempt to bring this book to Audible is a barely-mitigated disaster. Since other reviewers have made this general point, I'll focus on one particular, a problem that occurs what must be hundreds of times during the book. Bennett simply does not understand how to read the word "and". Over and over, he makes "and" the most important word in a phrase or sentence, raising his pitch just for this word and inserting meaningless and really confusing "micro-pauses" (if I can coin that term) before and after. You would do that naturally if what followed "and" was in some way unexpected, so that the listener could take note of it. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing in the text he's reading that justifies this. As a listener, when he hits a pause, you expect the thought/phrase/sentence is over....but no! "...AND..." throws you off. OK, once in a while, listeners can manage. But over and over (do I repeat myself?) he does this in a way that completely disrupts the flow. Example: in referring to Obama's family, he says "Barack Obama...AND... Michelle... AND the children". Mr. Barrett. it's just "Barack Obama and Michelle and the children". Just say it, it's not hard.

I have to say that I put a lot of the responsibility (read: blame) on the director of the production. Did she/he not listen to the recording at all? One other issue, one which the director really must take full blame for: Audible's version has eight "Parts", each consisting of an article Coates wrote during a year of Obama's presidency, preceded by an introduction written (I presume) for this book. After these, there is an eight-minute "Epilogue". This is followed by "End Credits". The End Credits last nearly an *hour*, and what's there has nothing to do with actual end credits. It's another essay, or actually a continuation of the Epilogue, which really isn't an epilogue either, but rather a whole new essay written more-or-less about Donald Trump. By the way, this essay (or "Epilogue/End Credits") has no title that appears either in the "Chapters" list or is included in the reading. This is really poor work on the part of the production group.

In the words of Barack Obama, "C'mon, man!"

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Great in some ways; in others, wtf!

Revisado: 06-22-20

First off, after I finished Sand County Almanac, I told my son, who’d recommended it to me, “I have a new favorite book.” I love the way Leopold writes, at all times mindful of the smallest details as well as how those fit into a much larger and longer story. Some have compared his writing to Thoreau’s. Nah, it’s much better than that. It’s Thoreau without the (sorry, Thoreau fans - I’m actually one of you) pretentiousness.

I do have a bone to pick though. While Campbell does a fine job reading the story, it just sounds weird coming out in a woman’s voice. It’s not just all the parts - and there are many - where Leopold is clearly expressing a man’s perspective; the whole sensibility of the book is a male perspective. I’m honestly surprised Campbell agreed to do the project.

OK, now for the wtf. As I said, this is my new favorite book, so naturally I wanted to get it in print. Just arrived today and I opened it at random to see if I recognized an old friend. I was in a section called “Arizona and the New World “. Huh? There was no such section in the book I listened to. Guess what: the current version on Audible is abridged. But wait! Doesn’t it say in the description “Unabridged Audiobook”. Yep, it sure does. Are you sitting down? Of the 224 or so pages in the printed book, about 95 are not included in the audiobook.

Want another wtf? When I told my son about all this, he was mystified. We checked his version of the book he had downloaded from Audible.com. It’s all there, the entire text. And, his version is read by Mike Chamberlain. It also turns out that version is “no longer available”.

What the heck happened? Contract dispute? Who knows? But I do know this really is not acceptable.

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Excellent story - outstanding performance

Revisado: 04-29-18

Cahill manages to span an amazingly large span of history, not by condensing it, but by finding the thread that reveals the connections: the fall of Rome, St. Augustine, the Druids, Irish immigration, St. Patrick - and, of course, the fact that so much of the literature of the ancient world, especially Latin works, was available to lay the foundation for the Renaissance only because of the work of the Irish scribes. It is a tale little-known enough, but an important one, and Cahill writes it well. But it is Liam Neeson’s reading that truly brings it to life. He tells the tale with the passion that perhaps only an Irishman (and one with the dramatic skills of a Liam Neeson) could bring.

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Understanding Power: good material badly presented

Revisado: 12-02-16

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

I would recommend it, but with major caveats. Chomsky is a brilliant thinker with an array of facts at his command that goes far beyond "impressive": "staggering" is more like it. He both knows about and has thought about an extraordinary range of issues. And this is part of the difficulty in listening to this book. The material seems to have been organized in a haphazard, or at least bizarre, way: a given chapter might include material on abortion, the Korean War, various conspiracy theories, and Wall Street capitalists. The next chapter might include some of these as well, along with a bunch of others. The material is certainly not organized chronologically, which would have had its own value in seeing the development of Chomsky's thoughts. The chapter titles are of no help here, nor are the "section" titles -- I'm not sure what else to call them -- phrases inserted between chunks of material. They feel like the editor/producer telling me what the next part is "actually" about; this is not a big drawback, but could have been done much better.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Understanding Power?

The book left me with diametrically opposed feelings - the need to take action, to find something that one can do, set next to the feeling of the enormous difficulty of making anything actually happen. These thoughts are echoed over and over by the people -- often serious activists themselves -- who attended these talks and whose questions structure the material. Then again, perhaps that is the result that Chomsky was striving for.

What didn’t you like about Robin Bloodworth’s performance?

The reading itself isn't bad, but there are some choices (which may or may not have been Bloodworth's) that really, and I mean really, get in the way of making this a more enjoyable experience. One is simply how Noam Chomsky's first name is pronounced. I have always heard "Noam" pronounced to rhyme with "Rome" or (what I think is more correct) just as it is spelled, as having almost two syllables: think of saying "Noah" but with an "m" on the end. In the various editors notes that occur through the recording, this is the way Bloodworth says it. All good. But whenever a questioner says "Noam" -- most of the material consists of Chomsky's responses to questions, so this happens a lot --it is pronounced, utterly inexplicably, to rhyme with "Nam" just as in "Vietnam". The first time I thought he was just repeating what the person asking the question actually said. But it's done every single time, and I would bet anything this didn't happen in the actual events. And it's irritating every single time. Such an easy thing to get right, and he knows the right way to say it, so why?? Still, this is less offensive that something it really must have been in Bloodworth's control. Questions are asked, as one would imagine, by both men and women. Bloodworth says at the outset that he will identify the questioners by gender, apparently thinking this makes it easier to follow the material. It doesn't, in my opinion, but it's no big deal. Or not at least till you hear how he does this. When a man asks a question, Bloodworth's voice drops in pitch and becomes rather more harsh, sometimes almost gruff. Even more noticeably, when he's relating a woman's question, his voice gets very distinctly higher in pitch and softer, in some cases actually breathy. He delivers, in other words, the quintessential stereotypes of men's and women's speech and, in my opinion, it verges on outright sexism. It certainly gets in the way of paying attention to the content of the questions. Considering what the book is about, one is only left to wonder what Chomsky would think listening to this.

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

This book should not be listened to in one sitting, even if it were short enough to do so as a practical matter. There is too much to think about on each of the many topics covered, not only as to what Chomsky is saying, but how his narrative fits in with (or rather contrasts with) what you've heard and read before. Most of the thinking should be "if I'm so moved and/or disturbed by what I've just heard, what could I or should I do about this?"

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People's History

Revisado: 08-15-15

The book ranges over a huge and disparate amount of content. The theme of telling history from the point of view of those whose voices have not been well represented in standard texts is not easy, requiring a lot of shifting forward and back in time, but Zinn does it about as well as I think it could be done. Because of this there is a certain amount of repetition, though it doesn't detract very much. Jeff Zinn does a decent job reading the text, only occasionally butchering a name. Overall, as (Good) Will Hunting says, it will knock your socks off.

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