OF MICE and MEN (audiobook) by John Steinbeck
Penguin Audio edition published in 2011.
Read by Gary Sinise.
Duration: 3 hours, 11 minutes.
Unabridged.
This is probably the 5th or 6th time that I have read this book. I reviewed it as a print book 10 years ago (click here to see that review).
Gary Sinise read this book and did a fabulous job, especially with the voices of Lennie and Crooks. He played George in one of the many movie adaptations of this novel in 1992.
This was my first time hearing this book as an audiobook and I was very impressed that it was an even more effective book when read aloud than in print.
This review of one of the most-read, most-celebrated novels in the English-speaking world will not include a plot synopsis - what's the point? Instead, let me say that this short novel has an amazingly tight plot. In this 3 hour and 11 minute story, nearly every scene, and most lines of dialogue are relevant to the climax of the story.
Foreshadowing abounds in the first half hour of the audiobook, almost all of the conversations in the bunkhouse point towards the dramatic scene at the end and the point to the theme of the little guy never getting a real shot to improve his lot in life. Even the title, Of Mice and Men, is a reference to the poem To a Mouse by Scottish poet Robert Burns that was written when he accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest while plowing at the beginning of winter. The mouse had done everything right, only to lose it all to events beyond its control. The poem contains this line:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Of Mice and Men (audiobook) by John Steinbeck.
Note: In February of 2022 I tagged this book "MAGA Censorship List" because a group called Moms for Liberty created a list of 51 books that they wanted removed from their school library. This article is pretty good because it has a lot of details. It includes the whole list and one activist's assertion that the books may be part of an agenda on the part of George Soros or the United Nations or the American Library Association. (Seriously - it's a direct quote in the article. This is the kind of crazy that fills these groups.)
This book is also on lists of books that Progressives want to ban. Here is a link to a list maintained by a university that tracks book bans. In this case, it is for inclusion of the n-word.
Read by Gary Sinise.
Duration: 3 hours, 11 minutes.
Unabridged.
 |
| The narrator, Gary Sinise, as the character George in the 1992 film version of this novel. |
Gary Sinise read this book and did a fabulous job, especially with the voices of Lennie and Crooks. He played George in one of the many movie adaptations of this novel in 1992.
This was my first time hearing this book as an audiobook and I was very impressed that it was an even more effective book when read aloud than in print.
This review of one of the most-read, most-celebrated novels in the English-speaking world will not include a plot synopsis - what's the point? Instead, let me say that this short novel has an amazingly tight plot. In this 3 hour and 11 minute story, nearly every scene, and most lines of dialogue are relevant to the climax of the story.
Foreshadowing abounds in the first half hour of the audiobook, almost all of the conversations in the bunkhouse point towards the dramatic scene at the end and the point to the theme of the little guy never getting a real shot to improve his lot in life. Even the title, Of Mice and Men, is a reference to the poem To a Mouse by Scottish poet Robert Burns that was written when he accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest while plowing at the beginning of winter. The mouse had done everything right, only to lose it all to events beyond its control. The poem contains this line:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Of Mice and Men (audiobook) by John Steinbeck.
Note: In February of 2022 I tagged this book "MAGA Censorship List" because a group called Moms for Liberty created a list of 51 books that they wanted removed from their school library. This article is pretty good because it has a lot of details. It includes the whole list and one activist's assertion that the books may be part of an agenda on the part of George Soros or the United Nations or the American Library Association. (Seriously - it's a direct quote in the article. This is the kind of crazy that fills these groups.)
This book is also on lists of books that Progressives want to ban. Here is a link to a list maintained by a university that tracks book bans. In this case, it is for inclusion of the n-word.
Comments
Post a Comment