paying attention

Good lisyening, both narrator and story.

Revisado: 01-05-24

I would really like to listen to this again, but ot never comrs when i ask foy it.

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so sly and so loving

Revisado: 09-06-21

thank you, elizabeth nyamayaro, for reminding me of ubuntu. i first read of this way of caring for each other during graduate course work in indigenous studies in the mid 90s. it has added to my life, understandings, and hopes for the world around me ever since.

i also thank you for writing so personally and choosing your details they way you did. this adds so much about the how and the why of ubuntu that would otherwise be harder to notice. in staying so inward at the same time as your focus is so large, details slide in all over the place inside me, not giving old believes, potential blocks, and unhealthy habits to disrupt them. it's about you, not me, so reactions aren't triggered. in doing this, you're like samantha powers, whose memoir is as intimate as yours, but about the place of person and family in a political world. you two have different styles and pathways for presenting alternatives, but you seem to me to present two aspects of a whole that is too large to be contained by any life's descriptions or any perspectives.

for over 60 years i've been focusing on an unsayable question about how humans and humanity can realistically become more humane. between you and samantha, i now have two parts of an answer to add to what i've figured out for myself, but without what you, elizabeth, have given me with your words and voice, i wouldn't know it.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

subtitle lies

Revisado: 09-06-21

at halfway through, 5% or less includes the women. it sounds like a standard history that publishers refused until subtitle added and info about women mildly increased. semantics so far include standard trivializing of women and expansion of comparably trivial men -- tinkerbell haircut and so short she required a special stool vs. his experience, dignity, and teacherly flare.

the second half of this chapter is detailed description of two highly respected men and the conflict between them. when women and their activities are finally included as important, details are minimal, blurred, omitted, or just rushed over. they aren't even contrasted with prior training to highlight their creativity. there is no information about who introduced what.
it's not even clear whether they came from the women or the man who gives them credibility among their detractors like wives protect homosexual men in comparable situations.

it's as if detailed descriptions a chapter or two before are enough contrast to automatically focus on the women. they're mentioned, aren't they? when some detail is actually included, the men are again highlighted. i'm going to skip and scan for the parts about women for another chapter or so to see if my current disgust can be eased. if not, i'll dump it as another egotistical sham.

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where are this author's other books?

Revisado: 05-23-21

i've been listening to a lot of speculative fiction, most clearly based on roll-playing games and who dates whom and why. sometimes interesting, but more seem to be just shallow noise. in listening to powers lt's a great relief to hear writing that's new to me with foundations more than half a generation deep. and the narrator fits the wriiting really well.

i rank this book with stephenson's anathem, sanderson's stormlight archives, rothfus's kingkiller chronicles, harkness, hobbs, etc. so where is dominion, the sequel to powers? and where are the books written under his own name, james a. hetley? they have to be at least as good as other books i don't reject or remove from my collection.

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once upon a time i would have liked this

Revisado: 06-06-20

but that was a long, long time ago. this is essentially a preteen story pretending a post-teen perspective. it would have been an adult story in about 1935.

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frustrating narrator

Revisado: 04-23-19

i think i might like this book, if i could hear it over the narrators freak outs and inner reluctances. i bought this book because i thought the author probably has something to say about worlds where sound is understood as the foundation of even physical reality. the window dressing is a bit more woo woo than i need, but that's okay. she's got to anchor her insights into some marketable strand of the cultural milieu, or i don't get to learn of her work. unfortunately her narrator's repeated intonations of disbelief make mattson sound like an a nut job or an idiot. and i don't think she is.

it's as if he's constantly going, "ulp. do i really have to say that?!!" at first i wanted to smile and tell him, "it's okay, you can do it," like i used to do with traumatized 3rd grade readers. but freak outs get old after the first hour or so of him acting as if he can't believe what comes next. "(beginning of sentence) blah blah blah blah have?! [pause] word. word. word. ... blah blah blah? word word word. (end of sentence)" pause before next sentence. by hour 3, when something on the page is familiar and comfortable, going as normally expected, he reads smoothly, shows he's essentially literate. then she throws him a curve ball by bringing up something i want to hear about, and he's back to freak out.

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is this really how audible wants to present itself

Revisado: 06-19-18

basic story is interesting, but presentation gets so repetitive i felt treated like a moron. and production is terrible. it sounds like a bunch of radio vignettes badly glued together with all recording done outside on a windy day with a cell phone. okay for brief vignettes, but real work to listen without bookends of well produced programming to ease out of its roughness.

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