Breakaway Farm

Fascinating Course Marred by Mediocre Narration

Revisado: 10-28-18

This course is designed to allow those unfamiliar with brain science to follow along comfortably and delight to those who are already reasonably well informed about current science news.. The lectures on the functions of the Amygdala (much in the news lately and even featured in a chapter of Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind"), multi-tasking, distraction and brain plasticity were of strong personal interest.

One nit is that there is a huge amount of information presented in each chapter. This is a good thing and easy to deal with in a lecture hall where note taking tools are the norm. However, since most of us tend to listen to course material like this while driving or on a walk, having a recap of the key points at the end of each chapter would be much appreciated.

The main problem with this course is Dr. Viskontas' narration. Her accomplishments are legion, both as a musician and a neuroscientist. However, her narration skills and vocal dynamics are limited. Her sheer enthusiasm may well carry her in a lecture hall but not so much in an audiofile. Her voice tends to rise in pitch as she gets excited and gets near to a whine when she's striving to emphasize a particular point. There is also a tendency toward the Valley Girl cadence of ending sentences and thoughts on a rising inflection. Fortunately, the latter is not evident through all the lectures, but enough to get very, very, very, very old...

There were a number of mispronunciations. The most jarring was speaking the word linguistics (and neurolinuguistics) as liNG'u'istiks rather than the correct liNGˈɡwistiks. The error was made repeatedly through a section that dealt with neurolingustics in relation to brain studies.

Lastly, Dr. Viskontas misread her notes or stumbled over words in her narration far more often than Audible listeners are used to. It is probably a credit to the quality of most of Audible narrators that we have become used to nearly flawless readings. In this case, it just felt like Dr. Viskontas, as an amateur narrator (despite her brief TV voice over career), underestimated the amount of practice time required.

It's not the intention to be petty in this critique. The point is that the last couple of hours got increasingly more difficult to listen to due to the mediocre narration skills.

With that said, Dr. Viskontas has prepared a whiz-bang set of lectures to review the current state of brain science!

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Timeless Story Read Perfectly by Julie Harris

Revisado: 09-23-18

Isak Dneson's depiction of the African landscape, her relationship with Denys Finch Hatton and all the inhabitants of her farm is like a detailed water color. Every small brush stroke helps to create work of great beauty that is so fragile, even a single drop of water or bad brush stroke could have ruined the whole thing.

Every time I read the book, I marvel at its delicacy and perfection. It is therefore a great tribute to Julie Harris to say that she read the book aloud with the same level delicacy and perfection. She made the book simply come alive.

Several reviewers complained that Julie Harris didn't try to mimic Karen Blixen's (Dineson's) actual accent the way Meryl Streep did in the movie; That is a red herring. Ask yourself - Would you rather listen to someone who was pitch perfect on the intent of the book or someone who got the right accent but butchered the prose? I come down heavily on the former.

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Narration Pulled This Book Down

Revisado: 09-23-18

This is a book about the retelling of individual events until they are shaped and cohere into a story. The story is not what is recorded in historical archives but rather an evolving narrative woven from the parts the teller chooses to share. The title, "In the Skin of a Lion" harkens to the promise made by Gilgamesh when his closest friend, Enkidu, has died: to grow his hair like a lion and wander, ostensibly to tell his friend's story to all who will listen.

The style is purposely fragmented in the beginning leaving the reader to find connections and begin to stitch together a narrative. OK. This trophe is used successfully by many novels. It requires additional work on the part of the reader but can lead to great rewards when done well.

Alas, if you are listening to this Kindle edition and have not read the book before, you'll never know how big the reward might be for all the up front work. The reader has chosen to make book's early fragmentation the cornerstone of his delivery. Every sentence is read as a separate data point with a rising or (mostly) lowered intonation to isolate the sentence from the one that follows.

There is no flow in sections that have a legitimate narrative flow. Dialogs are hard to follow since everyone has the identical voice and chopped speech pattern. Instead of being lyrical (which what I think the reader intended) the style inevitably leads to monotony.

In the end, I liked the book. But I'll never know if I would have LOVED it unless I go back to read In the Skin of a Lion on the page where I can experience it with a more natural rhythm and pacing.

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Searing, Honest but Also Lilting and Beautiful

Revisado: 05-15-16

Any additional comments?

If I could give this recording 10 stars, I would. Cumming writes beautiful prose. His compelling narrative builds interest and provides a context so that lets each turn of the story and each revelation add to the our growing picture of who Alan Cumming really is.

The book entwines three different mysteries about Alan Cumming's father, his grandfather and, ultimately, about himself. The performance adds more drama - and more insight - than simply reading as Cumming's voice not only uses all of his broad acting skills but also reveals his own personal emotional state at any point in the story. The result is engrossing.

You want to know more about this man. You want to spend more time with this man. You want to send him a hug and tell him he did a wonderful job!

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