Pastime, Audio Version

Pastime, Audio Version (1991/1992) Robert B. Parker narrated by David Dukes

I thought Michael Prichard was a weak narrator for this series.

In contrast to David Dukes, he was marvelous. I had to listen to multiple words and names mispronounced (including acorn and Vinnie Morris) which was awful, but not as awful as his narration of Hawk and Susan and Gerry Broz.

I considered turning it off and borrowing the ebook, but was in the middle of cooking, and so suffered through it.

Now I see he’s the narrator for the next several books, and I have to decide if I want to read or listen.

The worst part, is that this is an excellent book, where we learn about Spenser’s past, including his growing up, his first love, how he met Hawk…

I’m coming out of the Arena and I run into a group of young white guys. They drunk. Lot of people go to the fights at the Arena are drunk. And one of them spoke loudly, and unkindly of . . . I believe the phrase was jigaboos. At which I took some offense.”

“How many were there?” Susan said.

“Enough so they brave,” Hawk said. “Six, maybe, eight. Anyway, ah expressed my resentment to the guy who had called me a jigaboo, and it caused him to spit out some of his front teeth.

And we also see the resolution of the situation with Joe & Gerry Broz and Spenser, and you almost feel sorry for the two of them at the end.

And we see Paul as a grown man, no longer the young boy who so irritated Spenser when they first met.

I wished I could do this for him. It cost him so much and would cost me so little. But it would cost him much more if I did it for him.

Couple of notes on aging here. No mention of Korea or military service. But he talks about seeing Jackie Robinson play at Ebbet’s field when he was 18 or 19, so that would be between 46 and 57. So that’s still dating him.

But best of all we finally see Spenser talk about his love of cooking.

“You told me how you started to cook,” Susan said. “You never have said why you like it.” “I like to make things,” I said. “I’ve spent a lot of my time alone, and I have learned to treat myself as if I were a family. I give myself dinner at night. I give myself breakfast in the morning. I like the process of deciding what to eat and putting it together and seeing how it works, and I like to experiment, and I like to eat.

If I remember correctly, the next several books coming up are all good, so I think perhaps I won’t listen to them until the narrator switches.

Publisher: Phoenix Books

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