After a few days of marathon listens (including the five hour ride to and from Amman) I finally managed to finish listening to the 43 hours and 3 minutes of Shantaram. Its a good listen. A well read and engrossing story. Towards the end I started disliking the main guy. His constant soul searching drove me nuts. Still the reader does an amazing job with all the voices and accents. I am very happy to be done. Its the same sort of feeling I get when I get to the end of a guitar. After so much work, I cannot stand to see the damn thing any more.
Now I am listening to The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I read his book Blink a few years back (in paper form) and found it fascinating. A tipping point is the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable. He claims that ideas, products and messages behave like viruses. There is a point where critical mass is reached and as in any epidemic, there is no going back. Its great to be listening to some non fiction again. And Gladwell's three rules of epidemics, The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context, is plenty food for thought. Read the book if you want more.
I think I will avoid fiction for a while, Shantaram was absolutely exhausting. I had to fight a Cholera outbreak in a slum. Spend four months in an Indian jail with the dude. Then nearly freeze to death fighting in Afghanistan. I think I am just way too impressionable for fiction. Give me facts, just the facts.
Wet varnish
6 hours ago
1 comment:
I LOVED "Shantaram", but remember having exactly the same feeling at the end. In fact, I thought he should have ended the book much sooner and perhaps written a sequel. However, the narrator was magnificent!
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