Leabhar maith, ach...

A good book... Quite a lot of mispronounced names and Irish words, and a rather dodgy fake Irish accent in places, but as long as you're willing to let that slide this is a really enjoyable and generally well narrated look into the life of the great Shane MacGowan.

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Decent book spoiled by the narration.

It’s a good book, no earth-shattering revelations, and as an authorised biography that’s probably to be expected. But the narration is really distracting. The narrator reads too quickly, mispronounces places and names, and worst of all are the weirdly generic accents. All the women sound soft and melancholic, well-known personalities such as Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Sinead O’Connor, Johnny Depp are given voices and accents that sound nothing like the actual people. Shane speaks too quickly and the narrator’s attempt to copy his inimitable laugh is just distracting.
It’s worth slowing the play speed just a little to make it more bearable.

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Have you ever met an Irish person (narrator) ?

did the narrator ever meet an Irish person or think it may be an idea to listen to an album or 2. The book was spoiled by the constant failure to pronounce irish names and places correctly. -

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unmissable!!!!!!!

I've been a huge Shane McGowan fan since my dad played 'Rum , Sodomy and the Lash' all those years ago and I haven't stopped adoring the great man & his work and indeed himself ever since .
This is a truly exceptional biography. I've read nearly all there is to read on shane . To be honest I just wanted something to listen to almost like back ground chatter while I'm at work but it really didn't take long for me to realise that this is a wonderful book . perhaps it has a wee bit more sway than other books as it takes in the witness accounts from more than usual suspects source. Shane's teachers, ex-partners and so on .... it feels like a more rounded account of Shane , his wondrous tallent with words and touches on some of the demons that have lead him into those long destructive bouts . It's not entirely perfect as I think that the author has a lot of love for Shane and so there might be one or two biased explanations but then if you are dealing with a character like Shane's it must be pretty hard to be subjective as he is a hugely likeable individual.... to my family , my freinds and my self at least ..... If you are a fan I think there's alot here to love . peace&love!!!!
'Tiocfaidh ar la'

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2 people found this helpful

Very poor pronunciation

Given Shane's love of Eire the pronunciation throughout is a travesty, story is okay but the narration should really be revisited.

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Great story- poor performance

Big fan of Shane McGowan so was really looking forward to this. Great content, research and many surprises.

Woeful mispronunciation of people and place names was an annoying distraction. The attempt at accents was laughable. The narrator clearly made no attempt to research and prepare for this.

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1 person found this helpful

a story about a flawed genius

good story about Shane , his upbringing, his irishness, and the time with the pouges, I would put him up with the likes of Dylan and van morrison.only gripe I have as an Irishman is why oh why did you need to try and take off the awful attempt at an Irish accent it was terrible.

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Brilliant book, deserved a better narrator

Book and story is excellent. Narrator really lets it down though, with woeful accents and mispronouncing at least 90% of Irish names and words. Still a great listen all the same.

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The story of a true genius

Great story. what a genius. pity about the narrator's accent. very dodgy in places

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Pity about the terrible pronunciation

Interesting and informative particularly around Shane's early life, but by the end of the book the tone becomes very sycophantic. Pronunciation of Irish placenames and given names throughout is terrible, Howth and Cillian Murphy are just two examples that the narrator destroys repeatedly ; I mean if you are narrating a book that deals so much with Ireland and Irish culture the least you should do is find out how to pronounce any Irish words in the text. Cillian should be prounced Killein no Sillein as is done here.

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