I am a novice when it comes to listening to audio-books. I've listened to the Harry Potter books while traveling in other people's cars, but due to my strong dislike of talk radio, sports radio, and any kind of monologue in general, I have shied away from listening to one person read aloud to me.
A long road trip forced me to reexamine my prejudice, however, and I downloaded two books from itunes, one being Shutter Island.
Consider me converted. Before I knew it, seven hours had passed and I was embedded into Teddy Daniel's conspiracy theory, walking along beside him as he sneaks around the island, searching for the clues he believes Rachel, an escaped mental patient, has left for him. He convinces his partner, Chuck Aule, that there is much more going on at Shutter Island than any of the good doctors would believe. Because it is set in the early 1950s, Teddy's suspicion that the psychiatric hospital is really a front for experimental surgery on the brain patterned after the psychological and surgical experiments the Nazis performed on the Jews during the second world war, the rocky Shutter Island, home to a hospital and prison for the criminally insane is completely plausible.
The only nagging concern I had while listening was that I couldn't figure out what was Teddy's motivation for exposing what really happens on Shutter Island. I didn't buy what the author was feeding me: that Teddy was determined to discover the truth because he was a dedicated US Marshall doing his job and sent there on assignment to discover a missing patient, but his secret reason was to find and kill the arsonist he suspects is now a patient on the island who set fire to the apartment building he and his wife lived in, killing his young wife. I mean, o.k..it's a motive, but for the risks this guy was taking, it seemed like a weak,and extremely lackluster one.
Then, everything twisted and it turned into one of those stories where the story you thought you were reading wasn't the story at all. Instead, clues you didn't even know were clues were telling the real story, that all fit together at the end. I love stuff like this!
Unfortunately, there is a ton of foul language. Lots. The doctors swear, the US Marshalls swear, the patients swear, the orderlies swear...it's pretty rampant.
But I still loved it.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Book Review - Shutter Island
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2 comments:
I'm surprised you haven't listened to a lot of books. It's such a great way to do house work. Glad your converted.
I've heard the movie is pretty cool, but I didn't realize it was a book.
Long car trips were was tugged me into the world of audio books as well (initially for my son, but later when I had to drive 80 minutes each week to a GED class that I taught).
Another aspect of audio books that I adore is the recall of listening to certain passages of certain books while driving through certain parts of the country. Does that make sense? I can remember driving through a portion of Wisconsin while I listened for the first time to "The Phantom Tollbooth." The experience of the book seems to become one with whatever trip I took while listening.
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