Sonny Johnson

Dimestore Psychoanalytics and Puddle-Deep Analysis

Revisado: 12-16-24

For a general overview of Poe’s life and poetics on Audible, you’re stuck with this. The biographical facts presented are interesting as facts, but the analytical value of the lecturer’s assertions is extremely doubtful.

You can expect to listen to a wispy academic try to diagnose Poe will all sorts of mental maladies. Who cares about Poe’s poetics when you can listen to a man with no clinical insight try to imagine him bipolar?

When he isn’t playing the clinician, the lecturer likes to pepper his dubious narration with citations from Poe. When citing the author, our fine reader departs from his natural nasal to adopt “Poe’s” tone, which he imagines as affected and tremulous as a shivering child begging for alms.

What a disaster.

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Fantastic Performances

Revisado: 10-24-24

The casting for the different roles was outstanding. The novel itself is a classic. Highly recommended.

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The Most Visionary of Arthurian Legends

Revisado: 08-23-24

At its worst, the text itself is bogged down by the usual tedium of medieval literature: forgettable battles, uninspired dialogue, litanies of place and personal names etc. But, at its best, the text feels magical - like a hallucinatory revelation sprung from an Arthurian unconscious. To my taste, the wonder of those fleeting, visionary moments makes it worthwhile to traverse the surrounding tedium.

An absolute masterpiece, in spite of everything.

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Fine Translation, Discordant Performance

Revisado: 08-23-24

The translation itself is fine, so no substantive complaints there.

The performance, however, is lacking. The text is a spirited exchange of verbal barbs, but the narrator has a 'monotonous drone' that reminds one of viscous, sludgy porridge. Armitage's voice not exactly an adequate instrument to communicate the potentially rousing, comic exchanges in the work itself.

I'm glad the work is available on Audible, and I appreciate the translator's efforts in bringing it here - it was simply an ill-conceived idea to have him behind the mic.

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Exquisitely Constructed Ode to Love

Revisado: 08-22-24

I went in knowing nothing and came out the other side charmed. It’s an unflinching, no-subversions-necessary pastoral, but a beautifully crafted one. A gem of simple, but touching storytelling. A shame that we have so little from Longus.

The reader’s performance was well done. Recommended if the above sounds like something you’d like.

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Fantastic Content, Uneven Performance

Revisado: 08-08-24

Seneca has been a pleasure to listen to, and the audiobook has a clearly labelled structure. All great as can be expected from Naxos.

The speaker has a clear and compelling voice, but he reads in a spiteful, sneering inflection. This tone is very often in stark contrast to Seneca’s content - his call to emotional evenness and calls to serenity. You’ll notice it especially in the three books written against the expression of anger. It’s an odd stylistic choice by the reader, you can’t help but notice the dissonance.

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Best City of God Audiobook

Revisado: 12-18-23

If you want City of God on Audiobook, this is the version to get. The reader’s pacing and inflection reflects an understanding of the text. Moreover, all the individual chapters (hundreds) are titled and selectable. This is unique to this version and alone makes this the far superior choice.

(The most reviewed version on Audible just dumps two-hour chunks on you, so good luck if you’d like to try to locate an individual chapter. You’ll need it.)

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Rigorous Nothing

Revisado: 11-23-23

The good professor is undeniably learned in the details, but has astonishingly little of interest to say about the Gospels’ meaning.

To my mind, the deficiencies in Professor Luke’s style are most evident in his lectures on John. He evokes the notion of ‘symbolism’ often, but his explications of the text’s symbolic systems are dim and disappointingly uncompelling. He’s quite proud of his own theoretical innovation here - denying John’s theological exceptionalism in favor of declaring it an ‘explicit’ rendering of the ideas ‘implicit’ in the Synoptic Gospels. It doesn’t appear that Prof. Luke is aware how philosophically reductive and virulently boring this move is. Mercifully, it’s unconvincing and unlikely to enjoy adoption outside the bounds of the good professor’s mind.

This is only the one of many methodologically awkward flattenings of the Gospels. It’s rare that academic scholarship succeeds in sucking the life out of its material to this extent. I appreciate the rigorous secularism of his approach, but all the professor’s learning should amount to a more compelling set of elucidations of such naturally rich literature.

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Fantastic Narration

Revisado: 09-16-23

I wanted to add to the choir of voices expressing how lovely the narration is. A revelation in its own right. Highly recommended.

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Virgil and Fagles Save a Bad Product

Revisado: 11-10-22

The audio tracks are broken up with no regard for the individual sections of the book. Good luck finding the parts of the book you’d like to listen to again. An annoying, rather baffling stain on a fantastic translation of an absolute literary classic.

The performance is tolerable - sometimes even quite good, but the performer is prone to fall into an ugly, choking, melodramatic inflection whenever things are meant to be sad. Virgil’s outstanding Book 4 becomes a cringeworthy slog. I purchased a different edition of Aeneid so as not to have to listen to it again.

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