Thursday, September 12, 2013

SFFaudio Review

Kafka on the Shore
By Haruki Murakami; Performed by Sean Barrett and Oliver Le Sueur
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: 6 August 2013
ISBN: 9780804166553
[UNABRIDGED] – 19 hours, 2 minutes
Excerpt: | MP3 |

Themes: / cats / helpful librarians / metaphysical reality / Japan /

Publisher summary:

This magnificent new novel has a similarly extraordinary scope and the same capacity to amaze, entertain, and bewitch the reader. A tour de force of metaphysical reality, it is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle–yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.

I went on a Murakami reading binge in 2009, and suddenly found myself hitting a wall. What I had started out loving started to overwhelm and suffocate me. I knew I needed a break from him for a while.

I did take a break from the break to read 1Q84, which I really enjoyed. As I listened to the audiobook of this novel, I found myself wishing I’d read this prior to 1Q84. Some of the themes are the same, and I don’t just mean the silly themes like cats and pasta and music, but shifting realities and not being sure about who you are on many levels. They seem more concise in this novel, and I think having this experience first would have made 1Q84 even better.

This past year, Random House has been putting many of Murakami’s works out on audio, so I jumped at the chance to listen to this one as I had not yet read it in print. I enjoyed the audio production immensely. The two narrators bring completely different feelings to the different sections, and the novel shifts back and forth between the narratives of Kafka and Nakata. I enjoyed the haven of the library and the very helpful librarian, but that might have been the only moment of reality in this book.

Murakami always sends me off to listen to music, not just by work but certain performances of a work. I spent several afternoons listening to the Archduke Trio (Beethoven) as performed by the “Million Dollar Trio.” Great stuff.

Posted by Jenny Colvin

SFFaudio Review

Sony ICF-CS15iPN Silver

“DREAM MACHINE” Personal Audio System
Product number: ICF-CS15iPN (Lightning Connector clock radio dock)
Manufacturer: Sony
UPCs: 027242866072 (silver), 027242866089 (black)

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts, but also radio. And since 2004, for those podcasts and audiobooks, I’ve been using Apple devices with the ubiquitous 30-pin dock connector. As the 30 pin dock connector has been upgraded over the years it’s meant I’ve had to swap docking equipment a couple of times already. For the last few years my go to dock/charger/clock/radio had been Sony’s ICF-CS10iP aka the “Dream Machine.” I actually had four of them: One for my bedside, one on my computer desk, one in my classroom, and one in my bathroom (for listening in the shower). The ICF-CS10iP was a robust tabletop machine. In my experience it could charge an naked iPhone 3, 3GS, 4, or 4S, and it could do so for even those wearing most iPhone cases. One thing it couldn’t do was charge (or dock) any iPad.

When I heard about Apple’s “Lightning Connector” last year I knew that the hardware I’d been using, and appreciating, would eventually come to an end. I started worrying when, last year, I got an iPad Mini (which uses a Lighting Connector). And then, recently, when I received an iPhone 5 as a gift, I knew the days of my wonderful ICF-CS10iP were coming to a close. There is actually a LIGHTNING TO 30 PIN ADAPTER available, $35 CDN from the Apple store (or a whole lot cheaper online), and it will fit and work with the ICF-CS10iP. In fact it is very usable there. That’s how my mom has adapted to the new connector. But for me stacking an iPhone on top wasn’t the ideal solution. So, I started looking into a replacement.

The Sony ICF-CS15iPN is the replacement I’ve been looking for. It has the same general shape as the ICF-CS10iP, but has actually been completely redesigned. Most importantly the Lightning Connector dock is on a swivel and is raised up. This allows for an even wider range of cases, and that’s important as I tend to have a thick case.

The controls have also been rearranged and reorganized into three separate tiers. The front most tiers (near the connector) deal with the dual alarms. The topmost tier deals with power, volume, input, and radio controls. And the rearmost buttons (invisible from the front but raised near to the top) deal with infrequently used but necessary programing like time settings and tuning. Like the ICF-CS10iP the ICF-CS15iPN comes with a simple and handy multifunction remote control.

Now the official documentation suggests that the ICF-CS15iPN is only compatible with the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5th generation, and iPod Nano 7th generation. But I can confirm it can also dock with and sync with the iPad Mini. The official documentation does not mention this functionality. Maybe the increased power needed to charge an iPad Mini will overtax the power supply? Perhaps, but I’ve not had any problems so far (after about three months worth of use).

Sony ICF-CS15iPN docked with an iPad Mini

A free app, oddly titled “D-Sappli“, available in the iTunes App Store, though getting poor reviews, seems pretty serviceable to me. It has a feature to sync your Apple device’s time and radio station presets with the dock (presumably for frequent travelers), allows for a sleep timer (usable for audiobooks), a music play timer (I havent tried it) and a sleep timer (for when the app is running). The main feature of the app though is the larger display screen of the time. The ICF-CS15iPN has a fairly large screen, but the option to have the clock running on your iOS device is there.

Sony ICF-CS15iPN docked with an iPhone 5 and displaying the D-Sappli App

Now for the hard part. Sony products have a terrible naming system. Their “Clock Radio” models, I have learned, all start with “ICF” – it took a whole lot of digging to figure out which model was which, and which was still available, and at which stores. Even when I thought I had the model number right the various iterations ended up being confused a lot of the time. To make things even more confusing the model ICF-CS15iPN comes in two different colors, “Silver” and “Black” and these are sometimes tacked on to the model number at the end as “SL” or “BK” (ICF-CS15iPNSL or ICF-CS15iPNBK).

I now have three ICF-CS15iPN devices now, and I use each one daily. The ICF-CS15iPN is fairly expensive, retail being $120 CDN, but the build quality, solidity, and sound quality all make me very satisfied.

Posted by Jesse Willis