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dorhastings 's review for:
Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman
by Alan Rickman
informative
slow-paced
How this book ended up on my TBR: My friend Deanna highly recommended it. We both enjoyed HP and Rickman's performance in particular.
One of my favorite films is Dogma, and one of the reasons I love it is because of Rickman's performance as the Metatron. I much liked him in Sweeny Todd, and I loved him in the HP films. I was so saddened by his passing, and I do love a good biography. This is not a biography, and while I won't say it's "not good", I will say that the 1.5 stars reflects my level of enjoyment listening to it. I usually listen to books on 1.5x speed, but I could not handle it and pushed this to 2.0x, and likely would have sped it up further when granted the opportunity.
I am just not the audience for this book, if that's what we're calling it (certainly a journal or diary can be a book, but it's for an audience of one), and I'm not entirely sure who is. I had great difficulty in the first two hours of the book, and I messaged my friend to ensure that she did indeed love the book enough for me to continue. As a fan of some of his work, I expected that I would find more enjoyment when he got around to discussing the aforementioned works. It's probably by setting that expectation that I felt almost the opposite. This is not to say that the book is disingenuous in any way; over 95% of this book is Rickman's diary entries, and he even mentions that they are more detailed than they have been in previous years. They identify where he's traveling to, which project he's working on, and who he sees. As the years move along, he is more frequently mentioning the passing of friends, colleagues, and mentors. The commentary about the acting profession is fleeting. There is some sharp criticism of directors who can't seem to get their stuff together, thus throwing actors and production into tizzies. I suppose one thing that some folks like about this book is that it humanizes Rickman and shows that he's a nicer fellow than he comes across. Sure, but not for nearly 20 hours.
Another reviewer mentioned that there is an editor for this book (Taylor; narrated by Alfred Enoch, though I'm not sure why we needed a separate narrator, and he did well enough), but no explanation of what work went into editing the book. There are certainly some notes by the editor to clarify names, events, or productions, but otherwise you get the impression that not a lot of editing happened. More's the pity. Emma Thompson's foreword is nice (read by Bonnie Wright; well done). Steven Crossly narrates the vast majority of the book. I think as a narrator he's great and clearly put the work in, but due to no fault of his, he just didn't sound/feel like Rickman to me. Rima Horton, Rickman's wife, reads her own afterword and does a lovely job, both with the concise writing and performance. I much enjoyed the interview with Rickman at the end, short though it was. There are some final entries from Rickman's earlier diaries that I honestly enjoyed more than the later ones.
One of my favorite films is Dogma, and one of the reasons I love it is because of Rickman's performance as the Metatron. I much liked him in Sweeny Todd, and I loved him in the HP films. I was so saddened by his passing, and I do love a good biography. This is not a biography, and while I won't say it's "not good", I will say that the 1.5 stars reflects my level of enjoyment listening to it. I usually listen to books on 1.5x speed, but I could not handle it and pushed this to 2.0x, and likely would have sped it up further when granted the opportunity.
I am just not the audience for this book, if that's what we're calling it (certainly a journal or diary can be a book, but it's for an audience of one), and I'm not entirely sure who is. I had great difficulty in the first two hours of the book, and I messaged my friend to ensure that she did indeed love the book enough for me to continue. As a fan of some of his work, I expected that I would find more enjoyment when he got around to discussing the aforementioned works. It's probably by setting that expectation that I felt almost the opposite. This is not to say that the book is disingenuous in any way; over 95% of this book is Rickman's diary entries, and he even mentions that they are more detailed than they have been in previous years. They identify where he's traveling to, which project he's working on, and who he sees. As the years move along, he is more frequently mentioning the passing of friends, colleagues, and mentors. The commentary about the acting profession is fleeting. There is some sharp criticism of directors who can't seem to get their stuff together, thus throwing actors and production into tizzies. I suppose one thing that some folks like about this book is that it humanizes Rickman and shows that he's a nicer fellow than he comes across. Sure, but not for nearly 20 hours.
Another reviewer mentioned that there is an editor for this book (Taylor; narrated by Alfred Enoch, though I'm not sure why we needed a separate narrator, and he did well enough), but no explanation of what work went into editing the book. There are certainly some notes by the editor to clarify names, events, or productions, but otherwise you get the impression that not a lot of editing happened. More's the pity. Emma Thompson's foreword is nice (read by Bonnie Wright; well done). Steven Crossly narrates the vast majority of the book. I think as a narrator he's great and clearly put the work in, but due to no fault of his, he just didn't sound/feel like Rickman to me. Rima Horton, Rickman's wife, reads her own afterword and does a lovely job, both with the concise writing and performance. I much enjoyed the interview with Rickman at the end, short though it was. There are some final entries from Rickman's earlier diaries that I honestly enjoyed more than the later ones.