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White-Jacket

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About this listen

Herman Melville, potentially one of America’s most important novelists, wrote White Jacket (published in 1850) based on his experiences serving the US Navy aboard the frigate USS Neversink from 1843 to 1844. White Jacket is considered to be Melville’s most politically charged novel due to its severe criticism of the US Navy and its policies at the time. In fact, the novel helped bring about the end of flogging aboard Naval ships (then a standard practice) due to its graphic and brutal descriptions of the floggings Melville himself witnessed.

Public Domain (P)2018 Museum Audiobooks Classics
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It's an interesting book, but the narrator sounds like he's reading a list. I can forgive a few mispronuciations (Trafalgar, for example, was pronounced "Traffle-gar"), but he has no instinct for modulating a sentence. Every single punctuation mark appears to has been read as if it was a full-stop, making this impossible to really get into.

William Hootkins's excellent performance of Moby Dick was way ahead of this.

Poorly narrated

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The story is interesting and important.
But where did you find the reader?
His tone is flat and he shows a real skill in mispronouncing even simple words, as if on purpose.
Try and find a better rendition.

Poor reading

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