Bevine is a great performer of different character voices and this kind of “he said” reading was not necessary. If this were not such an incredible book, I would have been totally put off by this kind of nonsense production and I cannot help but forgive this shortcoming.
One of the best narrators of audiobooks, Victor Bevine, reads the book literally with short bursts of “.,” he said, “.,” she said, “.,” he said” that were totally distracting. around whom the whole story revolves, no such person existed. The historical figures, places and things relative to WWII are there but, with regard to this Nazi propagandist, spy for the U.S. The book does not seem to purport to dramatize, with any accuracy, core events that actually happened in way of the protagonist. When it comes to this time and place in history, I find nothing humorous nor do I think that the author intended that. While the book has been characterized as black comedy, for me the book was deadly serious. The book is more meta-fiction than historical fiction. This is simple and beautiful prose about some of the complexity of our human nature. If you are anything like me, this is a tale that will stay with you for days after finishing it. The story is haunting from beginning to end. The book starts off simply enough and contains incidentals that are seemingly tangential but all of which interweave and come together in the end with a rather unexpected conclusion. This all sounds like a book that might be rather reflective and philosophical and, for some, this may turn out to but need not be the case. And, there are layers here to the good and evil dichotomy: do the ends justify the means and how does society and history deal with those individuals who do evil things to achieve righteous goals. Therein is the tension in the book between the “good” and “evil” roles the protagonist must play. It is also revealed early on that he is an agent who sends coded messages to the Americans in his broadcasts. Because it is revealed early in the book that the main character and storyteller pretends to be the broadcaster of Nazi propaganda during WWII, it’s not much of a spoiler. “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” This is one of the most often quoted of Kurt Vonnegut’s writings and one of the central themes of this selection.
0 kommentar(er)
