Audiobooks by Morris Berman

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The Soul of Russia

“Ecstasy, witchcraft, bewilderment—these ten loving vignettes on scandalous corners of Russian culture, by one of our most seasoned cultural critics, are a tribute to imperishable art even in our catastrophic time.” (Caryl Emerson, professor emerita of Slavic languages and literatures, Princeton University) In terms of literature, music, and film, it would be hard to outdo the sheer genius and creativity of Russia. These things constitute the soul of the nation, and it is this that Morris Berman explores in his latest work, The Soul of Russia. His central argument is that at the heart of this brilliance lies a particular idiosyncratic theme: the peasant-shamanic-folkloric tradition of the Russian people, which these artists, from Pushkin to Tarkovsky, drew upon for their inspiration. It was a “Dionysian” source, a nonrational one, and it endowed Russian creative work with what we would have to call vibrancy. Berman presents 10 Russian artists who have left their indelible imprint on our collective consciousness. Pushkin offers a supernatural puzzle that Russian scholars are still trying to solve to this day. Gogol tells a tale of a man who wakes up to discover he has lost his nose, and goes in search of it—while his nose has simultaneously taken on a life of its own. Andrei Bely, in Petersburg, explains the revolution of 1905 not through traditional sociological or historical analysis, but by means of a surreal panorama of Oedipal events. Chekhov wittily explores the erotic properties of food, while Diaghilev shocks Europe with the great Vaslav Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes. Composing for this radical dance company, Stravinsky manages to alter the face of music forever. Mikhail Bulgakov offers one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, The Master and Margarita, and Tarkovsky responds to Stanley Kubrick’s famous 2001: A Space Odyssey by coming up with Solaris, a film based not on superficial American techno-fetishism but on questions of love, reality, and human identity. The Soul of Russia is a feast for the mind, but also for the senses—a book that listeners will want to delve into more than once. Produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. ©2023 Morris Berman §

Morris Berman (Author), Todd Belcher (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Crepúsculo de la cultura americana

Desde las entrañas mismas del imperio yanqui surge una voz que arremete sin piedad contra la autocomplacencia y la estupidez que, día a día, se apoderan inexorablemente de los ciudadanos estadounidenses. Morris Berman es quien profiere esta devastadora crítica. Sin embargo, El crepúsculo de la cultura americana representa también un lamento por los buenos tiempos pasados, cuando Estados Unidos mantenía una cultura de calidad, cultura que hoy en día es una atroz caricatura de lo que fue. Berman hace la analogía con el Imperio Romano del 'pan y circo', sólo que en el caso de Estados Unidos, la estulticia se encarna en la glorificación de los valores corporativos, en el consumismo y entretenimiento masivos, en pocas palabras, en todo lo que proyecta la llamada cultura 'McWorld'. Parece imperceptible, pero la erosión de los verdaderos valores humanistas pasa frente a nosotros mientras nos atragantamos de productos chatarra, ya sean comestibles o espirituales. Morris Berman, como el buen humanista que es, decide hacer una denuncia al respecto, pero también propone una posible salida a este infierno cultural que se apodera de todos: la emergencia del nuevo individuo monástico (NIM), aquél que está dispuesto a rechazar la cultura chatarra en nombre de la verdadera civilización. Ésta es una lectura obligada para todos aquellos que compartan los valores del humanismo.

Morris Berman (Author), Jerónimo Hernández (Narrator)

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