Brad Simkulet

Not For the Feint of Heart

Reviewed: 02-07-23

How I Learned to Drive is not an easy play. The subject matters -- generational sexual abuse, the aftermath of war, the ugly power of enablement -- are daunting at the best of times, but they are particularly difficult in Paula Vogel's brilliant drama because she comes at them with such empathy, such humour, and an unrelenting need to undermine her audience's expectations.

No matter what they have done or have had done to them, it seems pretty clear that Vogel cares about her characters (even if she can't like them), and that care is conveyed perfectly in the performances of Glenn Headly and Randall Arney. Their turns as Li'l Bit and Uncle Peck are as excruciating as they are moving (and we don't even get to see them onstage; we only get to hear them and project their actions in our mind). L.A. Theatre Works has gifted us myriad plays on audio, and this is one of their finest productions.

It's tough to listen to, it's not really entertaining so much as overwhelming, but it will move you. I just fear it is going to stick with me forever, and that might be a little too much for me to handle.

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1 person found this helpful

I'm convinced

Reviewed: 01-22-22

Bill James & Rachel McCarthy James aren't simply offering a journalistic account of The Man from the Train, they are out to convince us that The Man from the Train was Paul Mueller (pronounced Miller), and that he was more than likely the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. They convinced me.

I've read that some listeners (readers) of The Man from the Train feel that the James' are too flippant, maybe even too crass when it comes to their style of reporting. I can see how that would be so from a certain point of view, but I don't share that point of view. The fact that our narrators (for both of them tell different parts of the tale) use colloquialisms, crack jokes and occasionally get vulgar doesn't bother me in the least; in fact, I appreciated the levity in the midst of what is an otherwise terrible tale of unchecked murders and the social paralysis that made those murders possible. Plus, having the vocal talents of a performer as experienced as John Bedford Lloyd delivering the levity makes it all the more appealing.

Where the Jameses excel is in the amassing of information from times and places when and where there was little to know impetus to save said information. All the time I was listening to The Man from the Train, I was imagining Rachel McCarthy James' journeys throughout the U.S.A. trying to track down information, and it took on an almost romantic thrill of a chase through microfiche and musty tomes.

Whatever the truth is, right or wrong, The Man from the Train is a compelling tale, and Paul Mueller -- if he is our culprit -- was as scary as our scariest monsters.

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Overcooked

Reviewed: 07-16-19

Lysistrata happens to be one of my favourite plays. I teach it often, and read it even more often. I have read multiple translations too, but this is the first time I have ever listened to it on audio; it was such an unpleasant experience that I nearly stopped several times.

The problem is in the narration, although quite honestly that had nothing to do with the narrator. Marnye Young has an excellent voice, and she is incredibly adept at changing her voice to play multiple characters convincingly. She also has an impressive number of accents at her disposal. Sounds good doesn't it? Well, the problem is that no matter how strong Young's abilities are, asking one person to voice the entire cast of Lysistrata, including the choruses, is a bit like asking one person to play all eleven positions on a football pitch -- disastrous.

Sadly, the producers of this audio Lysistrata knew that forcing Young to do the work on her own was a bad idea, and they tried to rectify their error with post-production audio fiddling. They add reverb and layer Young's voice, and generally make a hash of all the strophe and anti-strophe. It's embarrassing stuff, and -- for me at least -- all the tinkering made this audio nearly unbearable. Listen at your own peril, my friends.

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11 people found this helpful

The Carpet Doesn't Match the Drapes

Reviewed: 05-23-19

Smutty in all the right ways, Kit Rocha's Beyond Shame deserves a much better vocal representation than Lucy Malone was able to deliver. If Rocha's writing was a beautiful, well crafted set of drapes (on a silent runner), then Malone's performance was a ratty old carpet that's been trodden on until it's threadbare. Now, I acknowledge that my reaction to Malone's voice is coloured by bias, but there are some objective issues I can point to. The first is the nasal tone of her voice. It is neither breathy or sexy -- as one would hope for in a book like Beyond Shame -- but whiny, and this becomes a default vocalization for all the characters, male or female, dominant or submissive. Even more annoying is the sing song rhythm she adopts, and at the worst times. Hers is a voice that creates a barrier between Rocha's words and the reader's / listener's mind, ensuring that immersion in what should be a fascinating world is as unlikely as arousal. Rocha's tale is strong enough, however, that I will be switching to the printed word for the second story. I suspect I will enjoy proceedings much more if I can conjure a brand new carpet in my mind.

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1 person found this helpful

More Suspenseful Than I Thought It Would Be

Reviewed: 04-19-18

What did you like best about Sphere? What did you like least?

To actually create genuine suspense in a novel is a tricky thing. Some novelists of the past, the distant past, had that skill in spades, but as time has ticked forward that talent seems to have withered. Crichton had it robustly in Sphere, however. Now maybe that was to do with Scott Brick's acting/narration, but I doubt it could be all down to that. There was something in the story itself, the menace of the Sphere, the isolation of the setting, the fragility of the characters' minds and their habitat, the dread maybe, that made it a tense listening experience. I think, really, that Brick just tapped into what was on the page and dialed it up.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

There was one thing, however, that drove me a little nuts, and that was the military leader of the expedition, Barnes. I know he was supposed to be a jerk, that was his archetype, and he certainly fulfilled his role, but there were times when the team was making contact with Jerry that his stupidity pulled me out of the story. I would lose the flow and have to take a break before going back and listening to his stupidity again. Perhaps another listener wouldn't have had the issues I did, but for me, getting pulled out of the world being created in a story is always a frustration.

What about Scott Brick’s performance did you like?

Considering the amount of awards he has and the insane number of books Scott Brick has narrated, I can't believe this is the first book narrated by him that I have listened to, so I don't have a lot of experience to draw from when it comes to commenting on his performance. What impressed me most, though, was the way he narrated the women of the book, especially Beth. There was no simpering in his voice, no falsity that of an impersonation that takes on a tone of condescension and sexism. Brick lightened his voice, and that was all. It was a nice, subtle touch that kept me deeply invested in the story. Unlike the stupidity of Barnes (which I blame on Crichton and not Brick's performance), nothing in the voices of the women as performed by Brick pulled me out of the world.

Was Sphere worth the listening time?

Sphere was a blast, so I think another Michael Crichton book or Scott Brick performance are on the list of things to do.

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So Impressive

Reviewed: 04-08-18

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich's The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir is one of the truest stories I have ever read.

I meant to go further, to say more about what I mean, to praise Marzano-Lesnevich in detail, but I don't think I can do justice to what she has done here in The Fact of a Body. She has picked at old scar tissue until she opened it to the air, and she unflinching poked at those wounds in relation to the wounds of others until she understood what made those wounds and enabled herself to allow to seal on her own terms. The Fact of a Body is brave; it is merciful; it is unflinching; it is what memoir's should be; and Marzano-Lesnevich reading the audio version intensifies all of the things that it is.

The Fact of a Body is the truth of Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. I am so glad she told me the story of her.

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3 people found this helpful

Nothing if Not Unique

Reviewed: 03-25-18

At first listen, this mindbender of unseeing and gross topically overlaid cities by China Mieville seems impossible; it seems almost silly in its imagining of Beszel and Ul Qoma occupying the same space, wherein its citizens unsee their neighbours as a matter of every day indoctrination lest they Breach. But it's not impossible.

How do I know?

I created a football (soccer, if you prefer) game that has proven Mieville's speculative police procedural to be entirely possible -- eight times over. Picture this: four teams on the same pitch with two balls, two keepers, playing two separate games while trying not to Breach. The first five minutes are mad, totally insane, but the other eighty minutes fall into an easy rhythm, wherein both the teams from both the games ignore the other games happening, focus on their ball alone, and just get on with playing football.

Why does this matter?

Well, for my money, Mieville is trying to tell us something important about the way we unsee everything in our world that we don't like. That homeless guy on the corner begging for change? Unsee him. Harvey Weinstein acting like an asshole for a decade? Unsee him. The angry old woman screaming at teenagers in a grocery store? Unsee her. The scary teens loitering outside your local bodega? Unsee them. We unsee all day in a million ways, but mostly we unsee those things that make us uncomfortable, that makes us ignore the little and big oppressions around us. Mieville sees all that, and I think he wanted to say something about it (which he did with The City and the City) without alienating his readers, to gently prod them into noticing the things they unsee without pushing them away.

What better way to do that than a police procedural?

No better way, so that is what China Mieville delivered. A solid, Sjowall-Wahloo-Mankell inspired cop story with international implications, crazy geography, and a cast of compelling characters led by Tyador Borlu, the head of the investigation into the murder of Fulana Detail. A seemingly mundane cop story that has something more impressive at its heart.

This is a great book, and Mieville tries to make it for everyone, although I don't think he quite succeeds in that. But if you like a dose of high minded Baudrillardism with your police procedurals, you will be one of those it is for.

p.s. John Lee's quality narration is a nice bonus to proceedings.

p.p.s. There is a BBC mini-series of this coming out soon. Read it before you watch it, please. Please?

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Perhaps the Worst Narrator Ever!

Reviewed: 02-28-18

When I come to erotica, I wanted to be titillated, aroused, excited, and for that to happen, especially if I am listening rather than reading, the narrator is of paramount importance. S/he must sound sexy (something I know is, to some extent subjective to the listener, but perhaps not always), but more importantly, they must know how to read.

I am not, of course, talking about literacy. What I mean is the ability to convey emotion, to understand where the author's beats are hitting, to make us feel and hear and see and taste and smell what is happening in the story. If a narrator can't do that at the most basic level, then the narrator has failed.

Elizabeth Meadows narration is the most epic failure of narration I have ever heard. My initial instinct when hearing her voice was to just turn this book off and make it one of my rare returns. But then I thought I was just being too hard on her. Sure, her voice annoyed me from the start, but I was just being unfair. Besides, the book is short, so why not give it a listen. Five minutes in and I was cringing from the assault on my ears and libido. There is nothing sexy in Meadows' delivery, and she simply didn't know how to say anything that was written on Erina Toivenon's pages (part of me worries that Meadows might actually be Toivenon, and if she is that makes the failure in narration so much worse).

At that point, I should have returned the book, but I wanted to hear the Strap-On stories. I thought they would be fun, they're right up my alley, so I stuck to it a little longer, and by the time I realized that the stories were nearly as bad as the terrible narration, I found myself nearly half way through and felt like I was stuck in traffic staring at a car accident. I was audiobook rubber necking and I had to finish. I needed a shower when I was done, and not a cold one to calm myself, a hot cleansing shower to wash away the shame of having punished my ears.

So if you read my review and decide to move forward and listen to this book, you have only yourself to blame. You have been warned. Yikes.

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4 people found this helpful

Almost Peerless

Reviewed: 02-04-18

I am a huge fan of Wuthering Heights. My book obsessed Mom gave it to me when I was a little boy and told me it was one of her favourite books. I mostly loved it that first time because of the ghostly romance, but also, I loved it because she wanted me to.

As the years moved on, though, other reasons made me love it more and more. A mentor of mine adored the book, and her take on it made me love Bronte's rich use of language and the way she captured her characters' voices. My own study of the book made me love Bronte's daring when it came to the unlikability of the denizens of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. And when I went on to teach the book, as I have a score of times by now (I've lost count, actually), I found myself marvelling -- and still do -- that the story really isn't about Heathcliff and Catherine and their love at all, but about the woman telling the story to Mr. Lockwood. The idea that Nelly Dean is the true star of Wuthering Heights blows my mind more than anything else Bronte did in the book (and that was quite a lot).

And I loved this book so much that I named my eldest daughter Bronte, after Emily (not Charlotte nor Anne, although I love them too).

It was a joy, then, to find such a wonderful performance of a favourite book. There could not have been a better reader for this than Joanne Froggatt. From Joseph's barely discernible vernacular to Catherine's passionate struggles with the men in her life, from Heathcliff's anguish to Lockwood's stupidity, Froggatt (marvelous as Anna in Downton Abbey) strikes the perfect note for everyone. It is, however, her performance as the narrator of the story, Nelly Dean, for which she is most suited, and the dominance of Nelly to the story means that Froggatt is able to command our attention effortlessly throughout. I have a feeling that Joanne Froggatt gets Nelly Dean. It certainly sounds like she does.

The only "audible exclusive" I've heard that has matched Froggatt's (so far) is Rosamund Pike's reading of Pride and Prejudice. As a pair, they are the two best audiobook performances I have heard. You won't regret giving this version of Wuthering Heights a listen. Trust me. And I'd be willing to bet that if you were never the biggest fan of this dark, brooding, Victorian Gothic classic but were thinking of giving it another try, that this version and Joanne Froggatt's performance will make you a fan.

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207 people found this helpful

Transcendent

Reviewed: 12-26-17

What did you love best about Norse Mythology?

Being reminded of how much and why I loved Loki as a young boy was -- nearly but not quite -- the thing I loved best about Norse Mythology (what I loved best must wait despite audible's prompting). He is so much more than the Loki that all the young folk know and love from the MCU (although Tom Hiddleston plays him charmingly and well, and many great comic authors, from Simonson to Aaron have written him with gusto). Loki in Gaiman's retelling is cunning, sarcastic, brilliant, violent, impatient, malevolent, litigious, vengeful everything I remembered and more. Loki rules!

What did you like best about this story?

Never have I heard this tale as more than a thrusting together of unrelated happenings, but Neil Gaiman turned this into a running narrative from beginning to Ragnarok to re-beginning, and that made all the difference.

Have you listened to any of Neil Gaiman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Now for what I loved best: Neil Gaiman's narration. I know there are those who feel an author should never read their own work, but I disagree. Either they should do it or someone they love deeply should do it for them.

I am positive that no one could have read this with as much passion or understanding as Neil Gaiman. Not Simon Vance. Not John Lee. Not Julie Whelan. Not Peter Kenny (all favourite narrators of mine). No ... this had to have been Neil (and if not him then maybe Amanda).

I felt, by the end, that I had spent a week or two with Neil Gaiman visiting our home and sharing his adoration of Norse Mythology with me and my son. His voice had that power. And I was lucky to be listening to him.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Life & Life's Yearning will begin again.

Any additional comments?

Just thinking out loud, but since Terry Pratchett has gone and he can't team up with Neil, wouldn't it be wonderful to get a Michael Sheen and David Tennant reading of Good Omens. Please make that happen, audible.

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