2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Travels with Natalie, July 20, 2006
This review is from: Long Quiet Highway (Audio Cassette)
At first it looks like nothing--simple prose--simple stories--a simple, straightforward, non-dramatic reading. The pure, direct simplicity of Goldberg's prose makes her writing seem effortless, almost unintentional. The text is nearly transparent, as though the reader were listening to Goldberg's mind in all the fresh, unstudied, immediacy of first thoughts. But, any writer learns very quickly that nothing is more difficult than simplicity, and anyone who's ever attempted a memoir discovers that Goldberg's unembellished, naked honesty is almost as impossible to attain as enlightenment.
Long Quiet Highway, like a Zen garden, is an open gate to quiet reflection on the journey of becoming, on the pain and pleasure of striving to be human, on the way that death both pierces and gives meaning to our existence. Goldberg's meditation upon her own spiritual journey, upon the essential loneliness of all such journeys, and upon her own passage through grief is read on these tapes in the simple, unpretentious voice of an old friend calling long distance, just to talk. And, her conversation is the late night talk at the heart of our deepest friendships--the one about how we come to terms with the impermanence and loss in our lives, how we learn to survive change and grief, and how we may yet turn this survival into something very akin to joy.
I listen on the interstate as I drive the half hour to and from my work teaching writing at a local college. I rewind. I listen again. I slow down inside and remember the real journey. And, I'm glad to have Natalie, with her flat Long Island accent and her "simple" stories, along for the trip.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting thoughts but distracting voice!, June 9, 2009
This review is from: Long Quiet Highway (Audio Cassette)
Although I agree with many of the already presented reviews, I must say, Natalie's voice was quite a distraction from the content of the book. Her nasal, New York accent was so strong, I was tempted multiple times to just go away from the book. However, I am glad I did not as there are many things to be learned from her ideas to her life experiences.
Still, I would have preferred to have had a trained professional's voice read the book. Natalie's voice was so flat and sounded so bored! This certainly took away from the book.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eclipses the Book, June 3, 2000
This review is from: Long Quiet Highway (Audio Cassette)
Natalie Goldberg's reading of her book Long Quiet Highway truly enhanced the amazing content of her work. Her wonderful New York accent, complete with its dry wit, wonderfully transformed the recollections of her search for true direction in her life through both her writing and her Zen Buddhist practice.
The motion and rhythm of her voice as she describes the depths of her great love for her teacher makes for both warmth and a riveting story. Her travels take her from the suburbs of New York to New Mexico and beyond. The greatest of her travels, of course, proves to be the journey into herself as she continues her challenging Zen practice.
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