audiobooks

This is the sort of novel Richard Rorty might write if he weren't so bright; for Bach adumbrates, in popular form, some of the same romantic polytheism, trendy Prometheanism, egoism, etc., that has been developing in Rorty (and in our culture) for decades. The novel is bad for divers reasons: its ideas are adolescent, the plot is visibly idealized; indeed Bach's folly in the first half of the book is a "straw man" to be knocked down all too easily in the second half. Bach's self-absorption, his selfishness: who can take them seriously? Probably too many. Withal, Bach, in the end, is a self-rightous purveyor of cultish nonsense. Astral projection, immortality. Indeed. Bach's only saving grace is that for a while he listens to the sane voice of Leslie; and we may take a modicum of comfort in this temporary--he's always GROWING, you know!--rapprochement. Very convenient, too, that children are never mentioned in all this soul-mate blather!

Like several other reviewers in this forum, I found this to be one of the most annoying, inspid, flakey books I've ever read. I too picked it up as it came much too highly recommended by a good friend. I loved Jonathon Livingston Seagull when I was just a kid but alas, it seems as though Richard Bach still hasn't grown up while the rest of us have. The character of Leslie Parrish nailed it with the long letter she wrote him and he would have done well to heed her words of warning. He has to be one of the most self-absorbed, confused, cloying lotharios in literature. I too found myself skimming through entire sections combing for the meat of the story, which is simply about the relationship he was constantly threatening to undermine with the much more enlightened Ms. Parrish. Underneath it all I kept thinking that while on the surface Mr. Bach was talking about silly astral projection and such, he must have been going to sleep at night thinking what a real ladies man he was. There was this sense of him feeling very sanctimonious and superior about himself and his views. Awful stuff. The story doesn't actually begin until Chapter 30 with Leslie's poignant letter to him, skip all the pseudo-spirituality and overly-long airplane tangents at the beginning of the book if you can. All along the way, Mr. Bach consistantly breaks one of the cardinal rules of writing over and over again: "show, don't tell". In any case, Richard Bach never got out of playing house and make-believe with the much more realistic, giving and pragmatic Leslie, what a loss. I've never in my life not finished a book but with three more chapters to go I finally had to pitch the book in the trash lest it somehow jump off on me like an unwanted strain of intellectual bacteria. I want to believe that soulmates are out there but Bach's book didn't do it for me. Is it any wonder his marriage to the woman ended in divorce? This is not the kind of destiny I welcome. I hope this man will someday mature and write another book that will convince us. Eventually I found my solace in the love story of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which was like spending time with a dear, old friend.