Erik

Memoir of a Liar and War Criminal? Perhaps.

Revisado: 06-14-21

This book smells an awful lot like the author, Sepp de Giampietro, wanted to whitewash and hide his true story. The summary boasted that this was an incredible view into the Brandenburgers, the German commandos in WWII. It wasn't incredible, nor was it insightful. They were soldiers that wore enemy uniforms. That's all the more insight the reader/listener gets into that. As for the author, he spends an inordinate amount of time in this "memoir" talking about how much he was against the war and Hitler. I find that hard to believe. To me, it came across as a whitewashing of his personal history, of him fervently denying that he was diehard supporter of the Nazis. I doubt that a ho-hum recruit that questions Hitler and the War Germany is fighting would get picked up by the Brandenburgers, as Sepp claimed he was. I don't think Sepp is entirely truthful in this memoir. Maybe that wasn't so, but there are other oddities about this book that make me believe otherwise.

SPOILER ALERT - the rest of this review will give away the book, so stop here if you want.

Sepp gives a fairly detailed experience of his life before the war, volunteering for service, going through training, and then his battles in Yugoslavia, Greece and Russia. He's then selected for War College and becomes an officer. The next portion of his service, hunting partisans in Yugoslavia (a particularly gruesome location and time of the War) is all of about 1 sentence, something along the lines of, "I went on anti-partisan activity, got shot and returned home." That skimming of a year (or more) of his life certainly didn't go unnoticed by me. That left me feeling cheated and that Sepp was hiding something. The only conclusion I can draw is that he was likely involved in heinous war crimes that he doesn't want to mention and tarnish his life story. Anti-partisan hunting behind the front lines in '43-'44 in Yugoslavia was a dirty business. Yugoslavia was in the midst of a 3-way civil war. Torture and murder on all sides was a common occurrence. I don't see any other reason why an individual would skip such a major portion of his military history and life story that he's documenting in a memoir. At the end of the war, he's captured in Italy. The war is all but over (the time wasn't specific at the end, but it sounded like April 1945 in Italy). He's insistent on escaping the POW camp that he's in and can get no one else to join him. They all seem to know that the quickest way home, especially in the captivity of the Americans, it to just wait it out in the POW camp. Again, Sepp's insistence on escaping (not to rejoin German forces still fighting, but just to run and hide), leads me to believe he's a war criminal worried that his past will be discovered while in captivity. So he escapes and then goes back into detail about his flight. Finally he gets home, but then doesn't say what happens. The book ends right as we find out he's made it to his parent's village. We don't hear what happens to him, it's just over. The book just ends.

I was disappointed. Not a great memoir, and it leaves you with a nagging feeling that you're being lied to about his true life story - ironically lying is something Sepp boasts that he's very good at throughout the book.

Read/listen to with a grain of salt and a healthy does of skepticism.

P.S. - The performance was great. P.J Ochlan is a fantastic narrator that I've enjoyed listening to in several other books. In this one, he uses a very good German accent throughout. Bravo.

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A long road that ends up nowhere

Revisado: 10-25-19

First third of the book is great. Good characters, good buildup. Second third starts to drag. Has a pretty good twist about halfway through, but then the plot starts to drag. Large chunks of time start flying by. Last third was pretty awful. Story was completely off the rails, repetitive, boring, unresolved. Quite a letdown for such a great start. Narrator is good but story not so much. I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe just go see the movie?

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Another History Book that isn't Chronological

Revisado: 06-07-17

What disappointed you about Iron Kingdom?

If you are going to do the in-depth research it took to write a book of this magnitude, for the love of God, tell the story chronologically, not by topic.

Any additional comments?

What's this book good for? As an audio book, not much. As a physical book, a desk reference...maybe if and only if you have a thorough and complete understanding of everything that happened in the rest of Europe from 1600 onward.

This book's premise was very interesting to me - I want to learn about the history of Prussia and how the German nation came into being. I am a fan of history books, so when I saw this title available, I was excited. Unfortunately, this book simply didn't deliver. It jumps all over the place from weird topic to weird topic, jumping ahead 5 decades, then going back 38 years, then saying how important this or that event would have 100 years from now, telling weird anecdote after anecdote after anecdote and skipping over major events (I truly honestly think that the author jumped into WWI in 1916 and must have only talked about it for all of three pages). There's very little context for things described or presented. I guess the reader is supposed to have an intimate knowledge of everything that's happened in non-German Europe from 1600 to 1947 and is expected to understand why Prussians reacted the way they did to certain events going on elsewhere in Europe. The author sure doesn't fill the reader in on any of that. I don't have that in-depth historical knowledge of Europe, so as a result, I wouldn't retain much of what was being read. I would listen to this book for an hour or more, take a break and not be able to recall a single specific damn thing that I had just listened to.

I don't know why I listened as long as I did. I think I made it 20 hours in. I guess I just kept hoping it would get better the closer to the 20th century it got, but it only got worse. I have a moderate understanding of WWI and an intimate understanding of WWII. I was hoping to get some new information or perspective from this book on those time periods, but when it got to WWI and flew threw it in 5 minutes, that's when I had had enough. I didn't even bother or care to listen to what the author had to say about Prussia from 1918 onward.

This is an awful read/listen. I do not recommend it at all.

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Interesting take on an oft overlooked side of WWII

Revisado: 12-21-16

Any additional comments?

This is a very well researched book. I was particularly impressed with what the author, Nicholas Stargardt, set out to do in the introduction - "provide a sense of breadth and depth" of the feeling of the German people. I feel like that goal was accomplished effectively. That phrase jumped out at me and stuck with me throughout the book. You see how not all Germans were foaming-at-the-mouth-maniac Nazis. You get a sense of how confused the thought was among a public who's only information came from Goebbel's propaganda. You find out how the feeling of national unity, so strong at the beginning of the War, slowly changed to distrust of their government and eventually of their neighbors. You find out how the Churches in Germany struggled with Nazism and the news of atrocities increasingly coming back from the front. You follow a Jewish family who struggles to hide in plain sight as bombed out refugees. You see moderate to hard-line Nazi families and how they refuse to believe the truth of the terrible things the Third Reich has done as the War comes to a close. You get a sense of the helpless rage so many felt about the Allied terror bombing of German cities. All this information and more is in this book. As a WWII historian, I learned many aspects of the War I previously knew little about. This is definitely worth a read and an Audible credit.

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A book full of inconsequential rambling

Revisado: 12-21-16

Would you ever listen to anything by Phillip Roth again?

Probably not. I definitely was not impressed with this book's story or the way it was written.

What didn’t you like about Dennis Boutsikaris’s performance?

Absolutely no change in vocal tone or inflection for any of the characters.

Any additional comments?

This book is a hard listen. Here, we have a main character who is an author. In general, I hate books that have authors as the main character. In my experience authors as main characters are either the real author shamelessly plugging his life story with someone else’s name or the real author singing endless praises for the unsung heroics and struggles of the life of a lowly author, who is an unappreciated genius living a modest life among willfully ignorant people in a stupid society. That experience held up in this book. We have the author, Nathan Zukerman, being the lowly, unappreciated genius author, who doesn’t do anything in the book except be, at best, a reactive character, but in reality is mostly a passive character describing events. The book has very little dialogue and a lot of rambling. The point of view constantly shifts, which makes following the story difficult. Another difficulty in this book is the rambling. The constant rambling! We get the point of view of maybe five characters who take over narration of the book for several long sections. Not only do they all talk with the same style and voice (which is annoying and confusing in and of itself), but they ramble. They’re telling a story, get side-tracked by some unimportant detail then get side-tracked by another unimportant detail again and again and again. I’d say 50% of this book is side-tracked rambling that had nothing to do with anything important. To me, it just felt like unnecessary filler to turn a short, uninteresting story into an infuriatingly long, uninteresting story. Don’t bother with this book. I didn’t learn anything, didn’t take away anything and wasn’t entertained in the slightest. This book is a complete letdown.

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Fake Memoir - Literary Fraud - Violent War Porn

Revisado: 05-25-16

What would have made The Last Panther better?

If this book never existed.

Would you ever listen to anything by Wolfgang Faust again?

Wolfgang Faust is not a real person.

Any additional comments?

In the same vein as "Tiger Tracks," "The Last Panther" is a fake story being advertised as a memoir. These two books by "Faust" are fake memoirs and are literary fraud. The fantastic, outlandish fiction tales told in these books dishonor the real veterans who experienced the horrors of tank warfare, who suffered and lost comrades during the War, diminishes their real and important stories and clouds historical fact. Shame on Amazon and Audible for not vetting and fact checking the authenticity of this "Wolfgang Faust," these two books and of Sprech Media as a whole.

Wolfgang Faust is a fake name, probably for an American/English writer who wrote this story within the last few years. There's no mention of Wolfgang Faust anywhere ON THE ENTIRE INTERNET (except for what's been released directly from Sprech Media and/or Amazon). I can't find any documentation in any form as to the existence of this person. No pictures of the man. No information on his estate or where it is located. No specific details as to when he died or the location for where he is buried.

"Faust" allegedly published "Tiger Tracks" in the late 1940s and wrote shortly thereafter "The Last Panther" and never published it due to the heavy criticism he received for "Tiger Tracks." Where is the original "Tiger Tracks" book? What's its ISBN? The "Tiger Tracks" story was "serialised in a number of magazines?" Which magazines? When? Where are they??? Critics in the Federal German Republic described the original release of "Tiger Tracks" as needlessly provocative? What critics? Where's their reviews and criticisms? The fact is that "Tiger Tracks" is a fake memoir and there was no original book.

With that out of the way, let me speak to the specifics in "The Last Panther," supposedly written but never published until recently, and is another groundbreaking memoir from a panzer crewman.

Having supposedly been "stung" by the public’s reception of "Tiger Tracks,” "Faust" wrote "The Last Panther" and never published it. One would think the author's tone would change after being hurt so, that descriptions of battles would be different, that this harsh criticism would seep through his writings in some way, that he'd try to prove the importance of this next story by writing in a slightly different style, but that isn't apparent at all in this book. The writing and the amazingly descriptive recollections are written in exactly the same manner as “Tiger Tracks.”

Unlike "Tiger Tracks," "Faust" actually has a rank (Feldwebel), reports his general location (Halbe), states his unit (the 21st Panzer Division) and give details of some of the neighboring units. They're fighting to get out of the Halbe Kessel, to get to the Twelfth Army, cross the Elbe and surrender to the Americans. The story reads like an action movie script. The story itself is okay - there are no more than two characters and, now that I think about it, I believe that "Faust" is the only person in the entire book referred to by name. If that's true, that makes the book even more bizarre. Even in "Tiger Tracks," “Faust” referred to his crew members by name. The book isn't even enjoyable if you consider this work as a fiction novel, because nothing of consequence happens. If you read this book expecting it to be a memoir (as it is advertised), even an amateur historian, you'll soon figure out that it's unbelievable and ridiculous and begin to question its authenticity (I'll go more into that later).

As an action story, the plot is a bland, repetitive trek with lots and lots of descriptive gore. There's no characters, there's no real plot (other than to escape out of the Halbe pocket), and there's no theme, unless you want to consider "war is a lot of gratuitous violence" as some sort of deep, insightful narrative theme. Here's the plot: move, fight, describe some horrific gory scene, repeat 6 or 7 times, cross Elbe, fin. Sorry for the spoiler.

The story contains a lot of gore described in detail and in the same manner over and over again - starbursts from exploding tanks, wheels and turrets flying meters into the air, decapitated and dismembered infantry, burning tank crews, people dying gruesome deaths covered in burning fuel, gurgling breath escaping from a person hanging from a noose, etc... It's all much too descriptive for a memoir. I've never read a memoir in which the author is so enthusiastic to describe gore with such detail.

Let me summarize some of the items that "Faust" writes about that bring into question the authenticity of this book:

- Tank crews did not wear hobnail boots. Hobnails on tank steel is not only very slippery (making climbing and moving a dangerous activity), but hobnails have the nasty little tendency to spark on steel. Sparks in a tank = fire = death.
- “Faust” refers to his commander as “Capo.” That nickname struck me as an oddity. I’m not fluent in German, but I can manage reading and speaking it well enough. “Kapo” was a term used within the Concentration Camps to refer to a prisoner who served as an overseer. So, when listening to this book, I figured, okay, they call their (nameless) LT the Overseer. But when I started writing this review and looked at the printed book, I noticed the nickname is spelled “Capo.” I cannot find reference to that term or its usage anywhere in the German language. I have no idea what it is supposed to stand for. In the German language, the letter “C” is a rare letter. I might be completely off on this point, but this nickname is suspicious and another point of concern with the authenticity of this book.
- The Iron Cross was not worn around the neck. The Knight's Cross (a high award) was worn around the neck. Faust says he takes the “Iron Cross” from his dead “Capo’s” neck. The differentiation between the awards would not have been confused by any German at the time, let alone by a member of the Heer.
- Faust doesn't mention any of his tank crew by name. He doesn't describe them. He doesn't talk about them in any detail whatsoever, other than describing their gruesome deaths. He doesn't describe his intimate service with them, as I would expect from any tank crewman's memoir. Life in a tank is a life in close-quarters. You would expect a fraternal relationship to develop among the crew, but that is not evident at all in this book.
- Except for one instance in which "Faust" reveals that he once drove a tank, recollections of previous battle or war experiences are completely absent. The author of every other memoir I've read recollects his past experiences in the War and the people he has served with.
- Just as in "Tiger Tracks," "Faust" somehow has the omnipotent ability to see inside the tanks around him during combat (in which he should be buttoned up within his own tank), describing in detail ricocheting rounds, painful and ghastly deaths.
- "Faust's" Panther is constantly on the verge of running out of fuel, but miraculously keeps finding more and more fuel along the way. I don't know exactly what route he took, but from historical maps of the breakout attempts, it looks like the shortest distance from the edge of the Halbe to the Elbe through the Twelfth Army is more than 120 km (almost 80 miles) - that's in a straight line.
- "Faust" describes everything with way too much technical detail. It's as if he were in on the design decisions of each and every tank he comes across, pausing in the middle of the description of some battle to talk about what chassis a Jagdpanzer is built on or how heavy a Hetzer is and pondering on how useful 3,000 or 4,000 of them would have been to the Reich. In my experience, this isn't what a German veteran would muse on. He wouldn't call an MP40 an MP40 - it'd just be, "MP." The Soviets weren't called "Reds" by the Germans. He seemed to know every aircraft that buzzed them, and could describe in detail the type of artillery bombarding them. It's all too detailed for war memoir, in my humble opinion.
- The tone of this "memoir" is not of a German veteran writing it in the 1940s. The verbiage is much too modern and contemporary. The writing does not sound like a German translation at all.

I've read similar criticisms of the authenticity of Sprech Media's other books (e.g. "D Day Through German Eyes" and "World War 2 Through German Eyes").

I think I've made my point. I don't know for 100% certain, but it seems to me that "The Last Panther" is a fake memoir and is literary fraud. Spend your credit elsewhere. If you are interested in this kind of book, but want a real memoir, I'd highly recommend both "Panzer Commander" by Hans von Luck and "Soldat" by Siegfried Knappe.

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This is NOT a Memoir. This is 100% War Porn.

Revisado: 05-19-16

Would you try another book from Wolfgang Faust and/or George Backman?

So far as I can tell, Wolfgang Faust is not a real person. The name is probably a pseudonym for a ghostwriter, furnished by Sprech Media.

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

Anger, but not because of the content of the story. I'm mad because I'm fairly certain this is not a memoir, is not historical fact, and is most likely is a fictional story in which none of the people and events are real.

Early on in the book, I noticed that there was no reference to specific divisions, regiments or locations. That's pinged my internal "BS" meter. The author said the story took place in October 1944 and from his description, he faced IS-3 tanks. the IS-3 didn't make an appearance on the battlefield until the last weeks of the war in April 1945. That's pinged my internal "BS" meter some more.

The "author" is a Tiger tank driver that can apparently see every single detail of a battle from his driver position in the Tiger. If you've never seen the driver position of a Tiger, Google it. The vision slit is very small and provides a *very* narrow field of view. In fact, a Tiger driver cannot effectively drive in battle without commands and directions from the tank commander, who has a better view from the command position in the turret, but by no means could the commander be able to provide even a partial description of the battle occurring around the tank as Faust did. The description Faust gives of battles occurring around him are so detailed, it's as if he were either a field grade officer, directing the battle and observing results, or an omnipotent being, floating over the battlefield seeing and experiencing everything. I find it VERY hard to believe that he (if he is even a real person), an enlisted man in the driver seat of a Tiger, saw a tenth of what he described. Maybe he could have seen more of the battlefield if he were driving the tiger with the driver hatch open, but if the battles were as ferocious as he described, that would have been an instant death sentence. Being able to see aircraft dog-fighting during a tank battle? I don't think so. Being able to see and describe the tanks behind your own tank? Impossible. Being able to see the enemy tank crew through their own driver vision slit during a battle? Seriously?!? After listening to such unbelievable battle descriptions three or four times, my "BS" meter was going off the chart. I stopped listening and did some research.

I tried researching the author of "Tiger Tracks", Wolfgang Faust, and found no information whatever about him EXCEPT for information released directly from Sprech Media. According to the book, there's a Faust Estate, but there's no information ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE INTERNET about him or his estate. That's suspicious. Apparently, this book was released in 1948 and received heavy criticism. In my research, I cannot find any mention of this book or the controversy that followed it after its release (other than information directly from Sprech Media). Further research turned up multiple internet forums that bring into question the integrity of Sprech Media's releases. There are claims that Sprech Media is releasing a bunch of books that are advertised as memoirs, recollections, and interviews, when in fact they are entirely fiction and the authors are not real (e.g. "World War 2 Through German Eyes," "D Day Through German Eyes," and the "SS Panzer" series).

From what I've experienced and read/listened to so far, I'd have to agree with these claims and that what I'm reading is NOT true.

The fact that this book is advertised as a memoir, and most likely is not, is what makes me angry.

Any additional comments?

I'm really disappointed by books that are now flooding my Audible feed from Sprech Media. I'm a WWII enthusiast, and was excited to see some new "memoirs" from the German point of view. However, I don't believe this book, or any other book advertised as such from Sprech Media, is a memoir. I believe most, if not all, of Sprech Media's titles are 100% fiction written by a ghostwriters.

The story in "Tiger Tracks" is outlandish and reads like a movie script. Everything that happens just feels too extravagant and is too fantastic. There's a ridiculous amount of violence. Heads and arms and limbs flying. Spraying blood. Churned up bodies in tank tracks. Freshly dead bodies steaming in the snow. These gory details and their descriptions are repeated over and over throughout the book.

Many (not just a few) details are historically inaccurate or physically improbable. In a memoir, you'd think that specific locations, units, dates, etc... would be given, but that information is either absent all together or is suspiciously vague. In fact, there's no information in this book that provides the reader the ability to research any of the battles or actions described in the book.

I have no problem with reading WWII fiction. In fact, I think WWII is a great setting for a fictional story, and I wish there were more, better fiction novels set in WWII. "Tiger Tracks" is a pretty good read if you accept the fact that it's probably entirely fiction. It's a quick read, with lots of action. It's really a pretty enjoyable story. HOWEVER, because this book is advertised as a memoir, I have to give it a negative review.

I'd appreciate if Audible took action to correct this probable false advertising. I do not want to spend my money on books/audiobooks thinking that I'm getting an authentic memoir, when, in fact, I'm getting cheap, pulp fiction.

Finally, as a historian, I'm very disappointed that this book (and other Sprech Media titles) is advertised as a historical memoir, when it is not. I am worried that readers will believe the accounts within these books are true, when they are not. Misleading people to believe these accounts as true distorts history and is a dangerous path to go down. These fantastic, outlandish fiction tales, paraded as historic fact, dishonor the real veterans who experienced the horrors of tank warfare, who suffered and lost comrades on the Eastern Front, and diminishes their real and important stories.

If you are interested in this kind of book, but want a real memoir, I'd highly recommend both "Panzer Commander" by Hans von Luck and "Soldat" by Siegfried Knappe.

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Initially compelling, but becomes boring & tedious

Revisado: 05-16-16

Any additional comments?

A year or so ago, I read (listened to), "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving. That book was fantastic. It had great characters and while the story was bizarre and seemed disjointed, in the end, it all came together in a meaningful and powerful way. I did some research on that book after I had finished it and found out that it was written in homage to Günter Grass' "The Tin Drum." So, reading a summary of "The Tin Drum" and having thoroughly enjoyed Owen Meany, I had high expectations starting going into this book.

The story starts off compelling and interesting. It has lots of characters, lots of disjointed stories, lots of intrigue and an interesting style of storytelling. However, after only about a quarter of the book, the storytelling style gets repetitive and boring. The numbers of characters are seemingly endless and not important to the story. The quirkiness of the main character, Oskar Matzerath, gets old and irksome. There are several times in the book when the story gets interesting again - something happens that could have a major impact on Oskar, but very quickly, that potential is dashed and the story devolves back into quirkiness and ramblings. Reading this story is kind of like being a passenger in a sports car. When the story gets interesting, it's like the driver floors it. But then, just as fast as it got interesting, the story slows down immediately because of trivial stories and irrelevant antidotes and artsy, long-winded babbling, which is like your super sports car slowing down to 20 mph because you just entered a 100 mile long school zone.

I don't know if there was something (humor?) that is lost in translation. I don't know if I'm missing references that are/were well known to Germans in the 1930s - 1950s. I just don't understand why this story was so ground-breaking in the 50's. There just wasn't anything for me to like in or take away from this book.

Sadly, the story is boring and not interesting. Oskar is initially charming and is interesting, but doesn't grow or develop. It reminds me a lot of the pompous writing of Kurt Vonnegut (and I loathe 99% of his work). The story is one, long, rambling mess that doesn't tie anything meaningful together and just stops after 25+ painfully long hours of listening.

The narrator, Paul Michael Garcia, is excellent - very easy and pleasing to listen to. He can pronounce German correctly (which, surprisingly enough, seems to be a rarity with most of the German themed audiobooks I've listened to). I would be very happy to find another book in which Mr. Garcia is the narrator.

All in all, I would not recommend this book, but would instead recommend, "A Prayer for Owen Meany."

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A Pretty Good Sci-Fi Book

Revisado: 01-27-16

What did you love best about Redshirts?

I'm a Trekkie, so I thought this book was pretty funny. It calls out every BS plot device the original Star Trek used.

Any additional comments?

Overall, worth a credit and a listen. It's a short book with an entertaining story. Nothing spectacular or deep - just entertaining. However, that being said, there are two issues I had with it. Firstly, the author overuses short sentences that end with the word "said." It's really distracting to keep hearing hearing, "Blah blah blah," Kerensky said. "Blah blah blah," Dahl said. "Blah," Duvall said. "Blah blah blah," Dahl said. "Blah," Duvall said....on and on and on. Secondly, I got confused because there were too many main characters. It took a while for me to remember who is who and why they're important and what their story is. Other than that, not a bad book at all. You don't have to be a Trekkie to enjoy it, but if you are, there's plenty of small things you'll pick up on and be amused.

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Classic Vonnegut = Racist, Drug Induced Trash

Revisado: 03-03-15

Would you try another book from Kurt Vonnegut and/or Stanley Tucci?

Vonnegut? Absolutely not. Tucci does a great job reading such a trash story, though.

Vonnegut, Vonnegut, Vonnegut....how you have screwed me again.

The first Vonnegut book I listened to was Cat's Cradle - I absolutely loved it. I listened to it again immediately after finishing it. It is a clever story, there's great characters (who grow and learn and do something) and it was very funny. I thought, "Great! I found an author who I can really enjoy! I'll try Slaughterhouse Five next!!!" What a mistake!!! Slaughterhouse Five was just as bad, if not worse than Breakfast of Champions. Slaughterhouse Five has no plot, no character development, no story, no interest...it's just plain bad writing, and somehow, the "artistic" community considers it a classic. What a piece of trash! Garbage like this being considered a "classic" is why I have very little respect for the opinions of the "artistic" community. I listened to Cat's Cradle again. Frustrated (and assuming...no, hoping) that Slaughterhouse Five was a fluke, I thought I'd try this highly rated book, but boy, oh boy, was I screwed again by Vonnegut. This book, while it has somewhat of a plot, has not a single character I like, let alone care about. The story is blatantly racist and written by a fool high out of his mind that hates people, the country and, well everyone. He's the poor artist that no one understands or appreciates and is bitter as a result. The story is just as disjointed (and stupid) as Slaughterhouse Five. It was so bad, I returned the book half way through it without finishing it. THIS IS TRASH! STAY AWAY!

What was most disappointing about Kurt Vonnegut’s story?

Where do I start? It's painfully racist. It's out of date. It's horribly pretentious (it's a writer writing about a writer writing about a writer, who is an "artistic genius" no one knows about or understands). It's just a plain dumb story that goes no where and means nothing. Vonnegut did get it right at the beginning of his book, calling it what it truly is - TRASH.

What does Stanley Tucci bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I guess good...inflections?

What character would you cut from Breakfast of Champions?

ALL OF THEM. THEY ALL SUCK. THIS BOOK IS HORRIBLE.

Any additional comments?

DON'T GET THIS BOOK. STAY AWAY. GO READ CAT'S CRADLE INSTEAD.

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