Yon

The author didn't seem to enjoy his travels...

Revisado: 03-09-18

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

...and therefore, neither did I. I listened to many hours of this book, slogging through it, before it dawned on me why I was finding it difficult to listen to. The author had an amazing, rich and varied adventure through far flung lands. He met interesting people. He had love affairs. He experienced unique moments on remote islands. He was young and fearless and strong and seized every chance for adventure.

What comes out of this? Hours of dreary monotone, dry, unexcited. It is true that travel is often hard, and there is much day to day tedium, as even the most seemingly exotic place ends up being real life, and full of real life stuff. Nonetheless, if you're on a deserted island with beautiful surf, if you're mingling with cultures you find interesting, finding love in far places, not to mention engaging in your passion of surfing, it should be exciting, especially when you're young and seeing it all for the first time. Yet the author narrates all this in a world worn monotone, as though he's an elderly gentleman com paining about the tedium of his 100th trip to some highly desirable location, having lost any appreciation for anything. As one example, he travelled for a long time with one friend. All you ever hear about is how much they disliked each other, in a nutshell. He never talked, at least not that I recall, about how much fun it was.

I don't know how much of this was the narration and how much the tone of the writing itself, but what should have been engaging turned out to be dull and off-putting, and that's a shame.

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Worst ever purchase from Audible

Revisado: 07-18-16

What would have made The Classical Poetry Collection, Volume 4 better?

A refund, which I can't get.

What was most disappointing about the authors’s story?

The sample sounded promising and the price was good so I thought, despite the lack of reviews, what's to lose?

Oy. This is a collection of unnamed narrators (there is no indication of who the narrator is for each poem) reading unnamed poems - there's no indication of what the poem is called or who wrote it.

This is accompanied by light classical music which at times overwhelms the narrator's voice. Not that it matters.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrators were mostly awful For example, whoever the mystery narrator of A E Housman's section was, the reading was in a peculiar nasal, flat accent. This may have been an attempt to approximate the local accent, i.e. to be 'authentic', but it was godawful and fake sounding.

Some sounded like old original recordings which were possibly of the poets themselves but you have no way of knowing this.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disgust, anger and sadness over the wasted money.

Any additional comments?

Ugh.

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