Brian Abel Ragen

Japan as it was Just after WWII

Revisado: 01-26-25

Full of fascinating information. This book will not explain the Japan of today, but that does not lessen its value as an objective while sympathetic study of a culture.

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A Portrait of Patton beside his peers.

Revisado: 01-24-24

This was an enjoyable book to listen to, though it has flaws that are the responsibility of both the author and the reader. The author presents what is more and more a portrait of Patton as if it were a joint biography of Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton. While there is interesting material on the other two generals, the author’s main interest always seems to be be Patton, though even he would agree that Patton is not the most important of the three. The author’s style is also wearing. He loves “elegant variation” and insists on referring to the generals as “the cavalryman,” “the infantryman,” “the Missourian,” among others rather than just repeating their names. The reader is generally good, but is at time shaky on pronunciation. All that said, it is an interesting book and an enjoyable performance.

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Saving a King from Caricature

Revisado: 12-09-23

This is an excellent biography in every way. It is grounded in documents but addresses legends. It explains the real workings of British government in the 18th century. It recognizes that the American war was not the only event in a long reign. The reader is excellent, despite a few places where I might question his pronunciation of a word or the accent chosen for a quotation. But the accents in the quotations did enliven the reading!

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An Excellent Reading of one of Trollope’s Irish Novels

Revisado: 11-07-23

I enjoyed this reading a great deal. This is a very interesting novel, though Trollope was trying to do two things at once, and I am not sure he could really do both in the same book. He is both writing a first-hand account of the Irish famine and, well, a Trollope novel.

The performance is very good, but I am sure I heard birdsong in the background at times, and that was distracting.

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Late Waugh Turning His Satirical Eye upon Himself

Revisado: 08-30-23

This is a wonderful reading of a powerful comic novel. War describes his own terrifying experience of hallucinations without any trace of self-pity. He treats himself as he treats the subjects of his earlier, great satirical novels. The book is a good read at a window into the awful experience of hearing voices that turn out to be hallucinations.

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A Glimpse of a Vanished California

Revisado: 06-18-23

Two Years Before the Mast is one of the great sea stories—and one without battles. It is also a window into a California that disappeared with the gold rush. This reading does it justice.

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DEFECTIVE COPY

Revisado: 06-11-23

The problem is not that this is a “vintage recording” or that it was originally sold on cassette. It is that Audible is selling a defective and incomplete copy of this recording. That a message remains instructing the user to turn the cassette over is trivial. BUT when a book is sold as unabridged, I expect all of it to be there, and here part of a chapter is missing. After the “turn the cassette over” message, we are taken from the middle of one letter and scene to the the middle of another. Surely Audible could go back to the original tapes and restore the missing section. What is offered here is NOT the complete novel.

I also wish that the translator’s name were given.

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An Excellent Life of Lafayette

Revisado: 03-23-23

This book is not only a very good life of Lafayette, it is also a fine introduction to the age of revolutions. I especially like the way it treats Lafayette always as a primarily French figure, and not as primarily an American one. The role he played in more than one of the pivotal moments in French history is at least as important as his contribution to the struggle for American independence.

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Excellent Reading of Orwell’s Novel

Revisado: 02-06-23

Simon Prebble does a wonderful job narrating 1984. He keeps the speakers clear, and he maintains the pace, even in the places where Orwell the essayist takes over from Orwell the novelist.

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A Classic Gothic Novel and a Great Audiobook

Revisado: 01-23-23

I enjoyed this recording of “Melmoth” from the beginning to the end, which is the Introduction. (It has been moved to avoid “spoilers.) The Intro is excellent.
My only quibble is that O’Brien pronounces “Arminian” as “Armenian.” Not the same! (The reader of the introduction does not make this mistake.)
Readers may want to know that the structure of the novel is complicated—one narrative nested inside another and another. Also, like many Gothic novels, “Melmoth” has a strong element of anti-Catholicism – and what it says about eastern religions is even worse. But then gothic novels are supposed to be horrible!

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