Norman

Nearly perfect…but

Revisado: 12-01-24

I often let these poems unfold into my headphones late at night. Very calming—except for one of the narrators whose dulcet readings jolt me awake like the screech of brakes or nails on a chalkboard. I’ve not been able to find a list of all the readers so all I can do is identify the person as sounding like an appropriate narrator for a Barbie animation. I’m stunned that the editor didn’t realize immediately how out of place that one reader is. To add insult to injury, it is she who gets to read (and ruin) a favourite poem of mine, Sexton’s “Courage” and perhaps it’s an unintentional kindness that the Barbie reader doesn’t even recite the entire poem, stopping a couple of wonderful stanzas from the poem’s marvellous uplifting ending. I only wish I had the technical ability to re-record this otherwise excellent collection so as to omit every poem that Barbie butchered.

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An excellent painful read

Revisado: 01-27-24

(maybe a spoiler) There were several excruciating parts to this novel, starting with the main character’s disgraceful sexual exploitation of a student of his, then moving on to a brutal rape, and also, for me most painful, the euthanasia of many dogs. I especially admired how Coetzee evolved the main character from someone largely indifferent to others’ pain to being able, at last, to apply his literary critical skills to the suffering of others (human and not). It is an amazing story of incomplete but ongoing evolution of empathy.

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Great story- not so good narration

Revisado: 01-17-24

It would have so improved the experience had they splurged on having one or more child actors brought on to play Jason and other kids. Instead we have to put up with kids who sound like Mickey Mouse…without the humour. For Mr McBride the narration is okay but has too many unnecessarily stressed words. The story is lovely—somewhat reminiscent of the movie, The Bucket List—but intriguingly cute in its own right. But listening to the downright incompetently played female and child characters made me stop and give up several times.

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Up and down enjoyment

Revisado: 03-16-22

I loved most of this performance but found that Mr West went way over the top in the several sections where the narrator is imploring the Raven and then insisting on its departure..” My only other criticism is his insistence on saying “Lenore” as a three syllable word. Poe went to extraordinary lengths to hold to the line length and meter (often resorting to insertion of otherwise unnecessary words) but invariably saying Lee-ah-nor rather than Le-nor often throws off that hard-earned meter.

Ending on a positive note, I did love West’s raven enunciating “Nevermore.”

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Dark but lively

Revisado: 04-09-21

I have to say that I start each new Boyle short story with trepidation. There are a few that I wish I’d never heard not because they are badly written but that events are included that leave me feeling hollow or even nauseated. Yet, at his best, he can touch one’s heart and go surprising places that are very heart-rendering.

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What an endowment!

Revisado: 04-03-21

This is an incredible inheritance for anyone who delights in a very personal tour of literature. Here, great poetic (broadly speaking) writing is embroidered with the rich expertise of one of the great scholars and public intelligence our time. I was particularly moved by the section on A.R.Ammons, who turns out to have been Bloom’s dear friend. Bloom is not only encyclopedic in his knowledge of poets but actually has spent time and/or corresponded with many of them personally. And his exegesis of Biblical passages is also memorable especially his review of the Book of Job. The familiar—and fair—critique applies that Bloom has noticeably few entries other than “dead white men.” But this is his experience and, fortunately, one can now turn elsewhere to read beyond that canon. Overall, this is a masterpiece.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

What drivel

Revisado: 09-09-17

Would you try another book from James Patterson and Maxine Paetro and/or Peter Hermann?
NO

Has Private turned you off from other books in this genre?
No. I just will make sure to be more selective

What aspect of Peter Hermann’s performance would you have changed?
I think he was stuck with delivering the performance much as he did given that it is so banal, silly and predictable.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Easily deleted. But seriously, in what I listened to there were no redeeming qualities at all.

Any additional comments?
I can't figure if this was written as a spoof (in which case, however, it lacks a spoof's humor). The main character is an absurd caricature, driving a Lamborghini, beseeched by famous actresses for his companionship (who must, alas, settle for Matt Damon when Jack has to rush off to a good friend's because of a murder). Spoiler Alert Not to even dwell on how after opening heroics in Afghanistan, he luckily encounters his jailed father who dies a week later, leaving him 15$ million. There are so many silly premises in the opening 3 chapters, that, frankly, I deleted it from my smartphone, wishing I could further cleanse my phone with Javex afterward.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona