Dennis

Somewhere in the middle.

The narrator had a real challenge giving a distinctive voice to each of the characters. He did a good job with this.

Cartoon characters. Pedestrian writing. Good story.

Colin Firth did a great job. I was expecting a big-time actor like him to phone this thing in, but he was outstanding. He really brought the story to life. Most impressive.

This is a fascinating story, but I can see why it would not be to everyone's taste. The protagonist is, frankly, not very likeable but the interplay between the few characters is performed with such deftness that it becomes clear why Greene is a master. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this, although Mozart's life was more depressing than I expected. The musical snippets scattered throughout were a nice addition.

My biggest complaint is in the narration. The volume changes depending upon whether the narrator is reading text or an excerpt from a letter. And he has the annoying habit of dropping his tone to emphasize a particular word so that it is sometimes hard to understand. Example: He describes a particular song in a Mozart opera as both touching and . . . and what? I had to rewind to hear the dropped tone on the word "ironic." Yes, my hearing is just fine -- and I want to keep it that way by not turning the volume way up just to hear the whispers.

Nice book. The narrator works hard and, for the most part, delivers well but the volume thing was annoying.