Dennis Sommers

The title says it all!

Reviewed: 31-10-24

The whole story starts with the highly unlikely meeting of the hero with an X who hadn’t contacted him since their divorce some years previous: he gets into her car… how likely is that? What follows is a fantasy about absolutely nothing from which all we learn after contortions of the most improbable kind, is that the author seems familiar with the principal cities of the old Hanseatic league.

The romantic denouement at the end was foreseeable and totally cliched. The writing is competent for its plot but the story could have been edited without loss: characterisation virtually nonexistent.

The title says it all: found wanting!!!

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The best by far, of the Arthurian stuff!

Reviewed: 13-10-24

I staggered through Mortr d’Arthur with its endless descriptions of fighting more from a sense of duty to myself than any hint of enjoyment, but this is different in so many ways: it is beautifully written; there is characterisation , a discernible plot during which the diversions are pleasing and relevant to White,s general philosophical purpose. To be frank, the politics can get a bit OTT and by now has become dated, but as an historical document it works well enough.
White helps himself to the works of the classics, the Bible, some way-out theologians whom he understands and represents clearly and accurately; his scientific reading is broad and put to good effect; and his borrowings from English literary tradition are well to the fore, particularly those that anthropomorphise animals.

I needed to go back and re-read a good deal but it was worth the two weeks or so that it took to get a real handle on what Whitecwas tryting to do with the legend. Thus has to be among the greatest literary productions of the last century.

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A 20th-century ‘War and peace’

Reviewed: 01-09-24

I plan to read this again: it is so inspiring st so many levels that one reading can’t possibly suffice to learn everything it has to teach. There are magnificent set pieces as well as shorter insightful passages and sensitive dialogue: characterisation is rounded for the principals but smaller episodes contain equally true-to-life individuals and relationships. It is well said in the introduction that here we have another ‘War and peace’ with the difference that Grossnan was actually present among the events he recounts with such authenticity.

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Had its moments

Reviewed: 28-07-24

This is an over-long work and whilst it might cohere and carry cultural significance for a Japanese reader ir a reader or a student, it left me utterly confused as to what the author may have been trying to put across, and I doubt whether the problem could have been the translation which read perfectly well.

As for the reader: editors need to be aware that drastic changes of tone and volume, however in character, are unsuitable for those people living in close proximity to others: May,s shrieking and news commentator - not to mention the hideous Urakawa needed to be handled more sensitively by the recording engineer!

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Still worth reading though rather long

Reviewed: 28-06-24

The period here is turn of last century and it’s still worth reading for the inside track of the classic stalker and for a practical account of somebody falling through the nets into homelessness well before today&s provisions, poor though they still are.

There are a couple of very weak links in the plot: the appalling Mildred suddenly turning soft when Philip plays the handicap gambit- could possibly have worked several chapters previously but not conceivably here: and the happy ending illustrates why Maugham was looked down upon as a popular author: in reality the kind of emotional damage Phillip suffers is surely irreparable from this stage, as is his sudden bonhomie within the medical profession! How does he suddenly find he can deal with the spikey Dr. South? But it’s worth reading to know this was considered his best novel! I’m not sure that it is but it’s insightful in places.

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Sloppy and amateurish!

Reviewed: 22-06-24

Technically this is a very bad piece of writing, with potholes and serious gaps in the history; frequent diversions and red herrings and a litter if personal detail that has nothing to do with anything. It’s like spending a very long evening with an acquaintance at the pub without being able to get a word in edgeways .
Thenhing is that in many places the book is interesting informative and original particularly when dealing with fine arts and architecture. And he’s right: Ludwig Sentl is a wonderful composer! I enjoyed the book for all its many faults

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Exemplary journalism

Reviewed: 19-12-23

For anybody genuinely interested in and concerned for the Middle East the question must be, whether we pray or simply hope for justice: ‘What might justice look like?’
There are well researched and forensic histories available that recount the facts many of which speak for themselves once we in the west become willing to own them and their consequences.
This production deals with the consequences in terms of human life and is therefore an absolutely invaluableadjunct to these histories. Jeremy Bowen also recounts history, occasionally with insights the historians perhaps thought unimportant, but, for example, who knew that the original Zionists were not religious extremists - indeed, not religious at all but with a special secularised notion of what it is to be a Jew? There are many connections in his narrative that amplify existing written histories but the principal asset in this audiobook are the voices of thosepeople whose lives have been wrecked as a direct result of the very worst in greed and cruelty that one person can perpetrate on another.
Given that this was published in 2022, Bowen’s prescience proves that many people must have been aware that something likeOctober 7th was inevitable, and the reality that Israeli security had been equally complacent before past outrages by khanas or Hisb’Allah only reinforces the conclusion that oppression doesn’t work in the long run.
None of the western governments come out of this survey smelling of roses and the book should be a spur to voters to wake governments up to their moral obligations to make anends as they can for wrongs perpetrated and to revise their convictions that the bottom line and their own party interest take priority; otherwise politicians here are simply replicating the behaviour of those we should condemn in the Middle East.

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An utterly brilliant production

Reviewed: 14-12-23

This wonderfully informative and well written book fills a gap in many readers’ education between the classics we know and the thought of late antiquity/ not an area most of us have studied except Nureyev theologians; and even these can learn and digest the abiding legacy and influence of Greek ‘pagan’ philosophy on our often too precious church doctrine. Freeman is also honest about the lowdown and dirty squabbles and lower politics that overtook the church once it became an arm of secular control. The chapters tracing the influence of science through the Arabs and right into mediaeval and modern times are invaluable.
How the reader learned to emphasise the second syllable in ‘Origen’ is a mystery but you have to find something to bleat about however insignificant.
This audiobook will go straight into my very favourite collection.

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One very serious oversight

Reviewed: 11-12-23

This second bundle of restoration comedies from BBC ha seriously compromised by the absence if the second half - acts 4&5 - of Congreave’s ‘The old bachelor.’ The play was the best received of his comedies, and while the interval music is featured, and in a horribly outmoded performance style, what follows is the introduction to ‘The double dealer.’ Not a word either if warning or explanation: the second half maybe was lost from an early 1960’s recording, or perhaps the quality was too poor, but the okay ad we have it us meaningless, the more so because of its extraordinary reception at its original offering. I had to go to the printed text published inPenguin for the play’s ending.
Attempts by BBC marketing to point up relevance to the present political and cultural climate are somewhat obvious and characteristically patronising: they ‘re already as clear as day, but inclusion of the three ‘fair wits’ Ben , Nankey and Centlivre may be helpful for exam candidates but hardly for those
Seeking entertainment. This said, some if the acting is understandably dated as arecrenditiins of contemporary music and some of the voices sound very similar. Where possible reference to the printed texts would be helpful if only to discover where the abridgements are.

This bundle is certainly less well presented than tge earlier one but nonetheless worth having: individual pieces - ‘The double dealer,’ ‘The recruiting officer’ and ‘Love for love’ are thoroughly enjoyable as they stand, but what was achieved by taking ‘Thecwsy of the world’ into the twentieth century while retaining the dialogue unaltered is a mystery.
This is a flawed gem, but a gem it remains.

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An absolute treasure!

Reviewed: 05-12-23

It is not easy to find any decent productions of any one of these plays: ‘Country wife’ was done in a London suburb years ago but otherwise the only way to get acquainted with this important body of work is in print.
BBC could no longer put loin these productions so to get all these in one bundle is outstanding value.
The productions are all well up to BBC standards though it must be said that a little of this dialogue goes a long way, so no binge listening if you want to enjoy these to the maximum.
Thus and its companion listen fills an important cultural gap.

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3 people found this helpful