This just in!
The unabridged, 20 CD audiobook of Total Recall: My Unbelievable True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The narration is done by Arnold himself, and Stephen Lang. Lang, besides being a terrific narrator, appeared as the villain of the latest Conan movie – maybe he’s been tasked with reading the evil chapters of Arnold’s autobiography?
Maybe. Chapter 1 is read by Schwarzenegger and Chapter 2 is read by Lang.
Here’s a sample |MP3|.
I’m well into the book now, and so far here are my thoughts:
-Hearing about little Arnold in childhood will provide a reminder of his role in Kindergarten Cop, indeed who else could pronounce “poo” as well as the real Arnold?
-There’s something of an ideology thrown in here and there in this autobiography, and the remembrances Arnold is sharing, though detailed greatly (as advertized in the title) seem to be clouded by metaphors that can’t quite be literal. Early on Arnold says that both he and his brother thought a local shopping area, in his late 1940s early 1950s country town, was as big as “The Mall Of America” (that’s something that wouldn’t exist for a few decades).
-The many photographs in the hardcover are of course absent, oh well.
-The little entrepreneurial Arnold made money by delivering groceries, selling ice-cream cones, and panhandling (grifting actually) with sob stories (he’d tell nice old Austria ladies that he’d lost his all his money so needed money for the bus).
Posted by Jesse Willis