Things That Can and Cannot Be Said

Essays and Conversations

By: Arundhati Roy, John Cusack

Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Jim Meskimen

Length: 1 hr and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

In this rich dialogue on surveillance, empire, and power, Roy and Cusack describe meeting with National Security Agency whistleblower Ed Snowden.

In late 2014, Arundhati Roy, John Cusack, and Daniel Ellsberg traveled to Moscow to meet with Edward Snowden. The result is a series of essays and dialogues in which Roy and Cusack reflect on their conversations with Snowden.

In these provocative and penetrating discussions, Roy and Cusack discuss the nature of the state, empire, and surveillance in an era of perpetual war, the meaning of flags and patriotism, the role of foundations and NGOs in limiting dissent, and the ways in which capital but not people can freely cross borders.

©2016 Arundhati Roy and John Cusack (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Material and logic behind it was exceptional

I really was confused by the disconnect of those tackling these serious subjects professionally paired with the presumption of John Cusack (it’s my understanding that he’s never been a runway model) pejoratively critiquing men’s facial aesthetics as that of a frog. Should he really have stuck his neck out like that?

DNF: Disjointed and hard to follow

I admit, I didn't make it far into this. Its like being thrown into the middle of a dialogue without a lot of context, only that dialogue is in transcript form, being read by a single narrator. The narrator uses abbreviations for the speakers, moving quickly from one response to another person's rebuttal, then back again, and so much is lost from not being able to hear the original speakers' voices, nuance, and intonations.

Just really hard to follow the flow that presumably existed in the original conversations. It would have been much better to just replay those original recordings.

I suspect the content of these dialogues are worth reading as they are discussing important world events from unique perspectuves. But... unfortunately there are too many excellent books to spend 2 hours of my life on to waste in trudging through this format. If its re-released, I will gladly revisit it.

Very Misleading

This is NOT narrated by Arundhati Roy and John Cusack. That is the first disappointment. And because it’s not narrated by them, this becomes very disjointed and confusing. And there is very little with Snowden. And it seemingly abruptly cuts off and you are left going “W T HECK?”
I was expecting so much more and am very disappointed.

Cusack does not narrate :(

I was very disappointed to find that John Cusack does not narrate this book.