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A review by chauisauth
Lata: A Life in Music by Yatindra Mishra
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
2.5
THIS REVIEW IS OF THE AUDIOBOOK
I'm a huge Lata Mangreshkar fan and so, when I saw this book, I knew I had to get it. I got the Audiobook, and that's where I believe my mistake was. It just wasn't good.
A disclaimer -to begin with. I may come off as a bit of a pedant in this review, but that's okay with me.
First off, the way the book was arranged- in these two gigantic sections made it impossible to go back and listen to something again, if one wanted to, to say note down a fact or an incident, so that wasn't too good.
Next, the male narrator. Kudos to him for his effort, and I don't mean to take away from it, but there were some words that just didn't sit right with me. For instance, Lata Ji always sounded like Latta Ji. He said Raga and not Raag; the name Hridaynath appeared to have been mispronounced, by not stretching out the 'a' in nath as it ought to be, a raag name was repeatedly mispronounced etc. There were a few others too.
In the second part, i.e., the selected interview excerpts- the narrator for Lata Ji's parts had such an overt regional while speaking, that (and I admit, this probably is my fault) that I could not reconcile that voice essaying her part of the interview with the persona that we know- being such a clear speaker, conscious of the nuances of language, accents and expression.
For those reasons, I unfortunately could not enjoy it. Maybe after some time, when that voice and the book have been disassociated, I will pick up the book and give it a whirl.
I'm a huge Lata Mangreshkar fan and so, when I saw this book, I knew I had to get it. I got the Audiobook, and that's where I believe my mistake was. It just wasn't good.
A disclaimer -to begin with. I may come off as a bit of a pedant in this review, but that's okay with me.
First off, the way the book was arranged- in these two gigantic sections made it impossible to go back and listen to something again, if one wanted to, to say note down a fact or an incident, so that wasn't too good.
Next, the male narrator. Kudos to him for his effort, and I don't mean to take away from it, but there were some words that just didn't sit right with me. For instance, Lata Ji always sounded like Latta Ji. He said Raga and not Raag; the name Hridaynath appeared to have been mispronounced, by not stretching out the 'a' in nath as it ought to be, a raag name was repeatedly mispronounced etc. There were a few others too.
In the second part, i.e., the selected interview excerpts- the narrator for Lata Ji's parts had such an overt regional while speaking, that (and I admit, this probably is my fault) that I could not reconcile that voice essaying her part of the interview with the persona that we know- being such a clear speaker, conscious of the nuances of language, accents and expression.
For those reasons, I unfortunately could not enjoy it. Maybe after some time, when that voice and the book have been disassociated, I will pick up the book and give it a whirl.