kurtwombat's Reviews (902)

My first Listen With Audrey experience and it was a delight--the presentation includes audio, visual and written notes at the end and themed art work. The poem itself is an intoxicating classic. The quick rhythms that capture you like a whirlpool forever circling inescapable grief beg to be read again the moment you finish.

 I peaked at some reviews before reading this book and quite a few referred to it as boring. I thought, how can a classic novel of undersea adventure be boring. Well, I found out. You do by choking your novel with information about the geography, animal and plant life of the aquatic world that modern folks are either already familiar with or thought they were until confronted with a myriad of Latin terms. I’m sure many of his 1800’s audiences were as mind blown by these descriptions as they were by the action—but that just doesn’t translate. I was inspired to condense the novel to one phrase: 

YOU CAN’T SEE THE STORY FOR THE SEAS! 

 A most enjoyable and snarky spoof of Crafting Self Help books (and when enjoying the audiobook it feels more like a mock TV show). Not unlike the author’s celebrated TV show At Home with Amy Sedaris, it is as funny but gradually grows darker as it progresses—how dark and in what directions I won’t spoil. Sly in spots, broad in others. Shameless in the best ways. 

 My first straight up Manga experience and I quite enjoyed it. Very nice set up for a long series (I was blessed recently with the first 20 installments). Inventive enough to keep this not young adult interested—relieved that there was deftly handled character development and I’m a huge fan of All Might. Looking forward to reading more—hoping the promise of this first chapter carries through. 

For a woman who has chosen isolation, her most interesting relationship is with the city she lives in. 

"Beirut…is the Elizabeth Taylor of cities: insane, beautiful, tacky, falling apart, aging, and forever drama laden. She'll also marry any infatuated suitor who promises to make her life more comfortable, no matter how inappropriate he is." 

 

 On an almost imperceptible scale, I can identify with the release of writing a well crafted sentence. DE PROFUNDIS was written mostly while Oscar Wilde was in prison—initially denied the ability to write, Wilde was suffocated by the words he couldn’t express. Ostensibly a letter to his lover Lord Alfred Douglas (look up a picture of Douglas online and you will want to start slapping him and never stop), De Profundis becomes an explosion of Oscar Wilde’s heart and soul and mind. He emerges as a man largely transformed by his experience (the spoiled rich like himself that were sentenced to hard labor rarely survived their imprisonment). He doesn’t dismiss his past “sins”, instead the libertine excesses were necessary to get him to prison which was necessary to get him to a more enlightened state. Imprisoned partly because of his own arrogance and partly because of being under the spell of Douglass (again, keep slapping), Wilde weaves a narrative of his relationship with God and the inseparable link between religion and art—art as an expression of nature which is an expression of God. While occasionally redundant or hyperbolic, Wilde expresses his self-discovery with jaw dropping beauty. Eloquent and graceful, like looking at a vast lake where the water is so smooth and glass like it reflects a glorious sky without a flaw. I consider myself spiritual without being religious, but I was genuinely moved by several passages decrying our failures as people to aspire to the beauty of art and God. I don’t want to scare anyone off by making this sound like a born again pamphlet you’ll find stuck on your front door when you get home. It is not that at all. Instead it is a last blast of creative glory from a wildly talented writer—like a fireball flaring out before it falls into oblivion. This is Wilde’s last published prose—he would die a couple years after his release from prison. 

 There is no way that I would ever attempt to read this book—my interest level is not quite strong enough to wade into a 1000 printed pages. However, delving into the audiobook—even a daunting 48+ hours (a good 20 hours longer than my previous high)—was a mostly a joy. Read by the author still sporting traces of her Brooklyn accent, Streisand keeps most of the book light and conversational—supplying momentum even when your interest might flag. At points amused or emotional—it might be acting but she’s good at it. For me some of the “I’m building a house” stuff wasn’t as interesting but the author’s enthusiasm comes across. Also, discussing her interest in politics was interesting but a little hard for me to take suffering as I currently am from a bit of  post-election malaise. I was all in on the nuts and bolts talk of Broadway, Hollywood and her musical career. I know Streisand fans who probably started crying before getting past the table of contents—I’m not that fan but this is quite a mammoth accomplishment (the life and this book). There is also something to be said about this as a gender equality text—you could edit this down to 300 pages of her pushing back at gender restraints in America. Sometimes she won, often she did not and paid the price. Of course, this is her presentation—who knows how close to the truth—but you can’t deny that much of her celebrity backlash comes down to her acting in ways acceptable for men but not for women.