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    Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch
    Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch
    Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch
    Audiobook6 hours

    Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch

    Written by David Mamet

    Narrated by Jim Frangione

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

    “Savagery appeased can only grow. Once you give in to it, it must escalate, like a fire searching for air.”

    The man who won the Pulitzer Prize for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, who wrote the classic films THE VERDICT and WAG THE DOG sounds his alarm about the Visigoths at our gates.

    In RECESSIONAL he calls out, skewers, mocks, and, most importantly, dissects the virus of conformity which is now an existential threat to the West.

    A broad-ranging journey through history, the Bible, and literature, RECESSIONAL examines how politics and cultural attitudes about rebellion have shifted in the United States in the last generation. By screaming down freedom of thought and expression, Mamet explains, we kill invention and democracy – the foundations of security and growth.

    A wickedly funny, wistful and wry appeal to the free-thinking citizen, RECESSIONAL is a vital warning that if we don’t confront the cultural thuggery now, the commissars and their dupes will transform the Land of the Free into the dictatorship at which they aim.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateApr 5, 2022
    ISBN9780063159013
    Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch
    Author

    David Mamet

    David Mamet’s numerous plays include Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award), American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, Boston Marriage, November, Race, and The Anarchist. He wrote the screenplays for such films as The Verdict, The Untouchables, Ronin, and Wag the Dog, and has twice been nominated for an Academy Award. He has written and directed ten films, including Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main, House of Games, Spartan, and Redbelt. In addition, he wrote the novels The Village, The Old Religion, Wilson, The Diary of a Porn Star, Chicago, and many books of nonfiction, including Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood; Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business; Theatre; Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama; and two New York Times bestsellers The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture and Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch. His HBO film Phil Spector, starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, aired in 2013 and earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing. He was cocreator and executive producer of the CBS television show The Unit and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.

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    Reviews for Recessional

    4/5

    1,557 ratings69 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a mix of opinions. Some reviewers criticize the book for its incoherent rambling and political bias, while others find it hilarious, terrifying, and true. Despite the differing views, many readers appreciate the clarity and power of the writing, considering it thought-provoking and a lesson in history, literature, and philosophy. Overall, the book offers a unique perspective on current events and may challenge readers' views of the world.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The long awaited conclusion to this classic children's series. A beautiful, complex ending that will surprise the reader. Lovely.
    • 5/5
      Hilarious, terrifying and true.
      Mamet is the Dunninger of our current dysphoric era. He knows what we are thinking even when we don't.
      I highly recommend that everyone read this book three times.
    • 4/5
      Great End to the series and really enjoyed them. After reading all of the 13 books I thought that 'The End was one of the best. I loved the mystery about Beatrice and who she was and only finding out in the last chapter. AThe only disappointment was that some of the questions that I had weren't answered about Count Olaf and Kit but I loved it all the same. Amazing adventure of the Baudelaire triplets and a great read!
    • 1/5
      Incoherent rambling with a political bias not even seen in most presidential biographies. Random historical facts thrown in alongside quotes of popular historical literary figures to sway the reader into thinking the citations somehow lend the overarching thesis credibility. Weak minded people beware: this garbage is aimed at you.
      Feels like something that was thrown together with little time for a high school debate tournament

      3 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      what a strange book... so full of suspicious and trouble thoughts... so full of itself for his own content. what’s more paramount is this absurd defense of the divine inspiration of some 2500 events... its like defending "the flat earth society that has believers all around the globe".

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Regardless of your political views, the writing here is astonishing in its clarity and power. Provocative, thought-provoking, but above all, a lesson in history, literature, and philosophy that may change your view of what is happening around you.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      After the first four repetitive volumes, Lemony Snicket (i.e. Daniel Handler) began to tell a broader and more interesting story about a contest between good and evil, which later emerges to be a schism in which what is good and what is evil is not always clear. Caught up in these events are the three Baudelaire orphans: Violet, Klaus and Sunny. A number of caretakers fail them (or are murdered) as they are shuffled from one home to another, until they find themselves accused of murder and must manage their own flight from the authorities. In the second-last book, Snicket hinted that the Penultimate Peril was in fact the series climax. It showed us that justice is neither simply black and white, nor is it easily obtained. We learned that life is not fair. And we learned (as we have learned in every book of the series) that the orphans must take responsibility for their own fate, rather than rely on anyone else. The series has been the story of a passage, in other words, into maturity, a message aimed at and well suited for its primarily young adult audience. The End is merely an epilogue or afterward, the anti-climax. It is only a symbolic echo of what the conclusion already stated. Here, Snicket uses imagery to say the same thing again: ejection from an island that strives to be innocent, featuring an apple tree and a snake. Leaving the island represents the final passing out of all others' shelter and protection, the leaving behind of childhood. Ishmael tells the orphans that their parents once lived on the island but eventually left it to face and fight the evils of the world. Their parents became heroes, and responsible for raising children who could seek out wisdom of their own. It is easy to imagine a similar path awaits the Baudelaire orphans, especially given the baby who is now their responsibility. The takeaway is that if life is but a series of unfortunate events, it still remains for each of us to decide how we will face it, in what company, and what our own ultimate denouement will be.
    • 5/5
      A fine end to an excellent story, and yet I find myself wanting more. I suppose that is the ultimate sign of an excellent book/series. Sigh... ...That last Harry Potter book needs to hurry up and get here!
    • 1/5
      This doesn't even deserve a review.

      A fucking disaster of a series.
    • 5/5
      Well that was unexpected.
    • 4/5
      The Baudelaires and Count Olaf are lost at sea when they end up shipwrecked on a coastal shelf near an island. A girl name Friday takes the orphans back to the island, but leaves Count Olaf because he was rude to her. Hey, great! They're finally safe from Olaf (at least for a little bit). The island has a facilitator named Ishmael, who has some pretty strange rules and customs. He doesn't expressly forbid things, but everyone ends up bowing to peer pressure, and as a result, the island is a very boring place with no books, no mechanical equipment, and the same boring food every day. After another storm the orphans go back to the coastal shelf to help gather debris to see if there's anything useful, and they come across a very pregnant Kit Snicket. Olaf is also pretending to be pregnant, but Ishmael sees through his disguise and locks him in a cage. The islanders fight about letting Kit and the Baudelaires come back to the island, since all they seem to do is cause trouble, and they finally leave them on the shelf. A couple of the islanders come to the kids in the night to tell them they are going to mutiny in the morning and ask them for their help. Kit begs them not to, but the Baudelaires are unsure what to do. They go to the arboretum on the other side of the island where all the stuff that Ishmael has declared useless has been taken to look for weapons, but Ishmael discovers them and takes them back to the main gathering spot. Olaf tries to invade once again and Ishmael shoots him, releasing the deadly poison Olaf had been hiding. The kids find an antidote, but the islanders don't trust them and end up sailing off. They help Kit deliver her baby, a girl they name after their mother, and Kit dies from the poison. In the end, we discover the Baudelaires' mother's name was Beatrice, the mysterious love of Lemony's life who died in a fire.
    • 4/5
      It did a good job of wrapping things up. A very satisfying ending.
    • 4/5
      I didn't want this series to end.
    • 4/5
      While not my favorite story in the series, I think it was a fitting conclusion to it. It tied up a lot of loose ends while leaving the reader with more questions. Still very good and I would recommend the series. 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      With every chapter I became more and more afraid for how this series was going to end. Which is why I started the book in May and didn’t finish it until November. I kept putting it aside to read other things. However I was pleasantly surprised by the way the series ended. I’m not going to give any spoilers, but you take up reading the series you can go ahead and read it all the way through without a big let down.
    • 3/5
      What, you were expecting answers? I dunno, I wasn’t that surprised that Daniel Handler chose to end this the way he did. I think it’s in line with his sense of humor and his general philosophy. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great artistic choice, but on the other hand, I kind of appreciated it: in real life, you don’t always get a happy ending, you don’t get the answers to all the questions, and not all the mysteries are solved. The whole point is that ‘the End’ is not the end, because there is no ‘end.’ That said, the book as a whole is a mix of refreshing and aggravating. Kind of like life. And hey, it’s not like Lemony Snicket EVER promised you a happy ending. He SAID you should stop reading…
    • 5/5
      Well. It's the end.The story is relatively simple, but Snicket beefs it up with a bunch of wordplay -- which is very enjoyable.But the story is good. It's tragic, but that's to be expected. It's fairly beautiful too. It's written so well.I don't really know what else to say.
    • 4/5
      The culmination of the Baudelaire's tragic lives is revealed, in (appropriately) the thirteenth book, which breaks the alliterative pattern in its simple but ominous title. When last we left the children, they were in a ship, in the company of their arch nemesis Count Olaf, fleeing from the Hotel Denouement. The beginning of this book brings the group into a terrible storm, which wrecks their ship and casts the lot of them unto a remote island. They soon discover they are not alone. They have landed on an island of castaways, who live by an unusual code under the guidance of their leader, Ishmael.
    • 5/5
      That ending was entirely unexpected. It resolved almost none of the open questions, did not tie together more than two or three open plotlines, rambled, diverged, and generally wound up in a wholly surprising place. I loved it (but I can definitely see how you might not).
    • 4/5
      So what do we learn in the 13th and final book of "A Series of Unfortunate Events: The End"? We learn that every one has secrets, that no one is all bad or all good, that there is no safe place in the world, and that a series of unfortunate events keeps happening over and over again to everyone, even possibly, you. Not all questions are answered, but a great many threads are tied. After escaping the burning Hotel Denouement by boat, the children and Count Olaf reach an Eden-like island where everyone drinks the cocoanut cordial kool-aid and follows the instructions of a "facilitator" with feet of clay, or at least covered in clay. But there are grumblings among the natives (who incidentally are all named after characters who are shipwrecked, on an island or kingdom apart, or simply lost at sea, or all three). The children find some answers they are seeking in the arboretum under the apple tree of course. Snicket is up to his usual playfulness with literary allusions and wordplay. Though not everything is explained, it is a fitting, and somewhat hopefilled, conclusion to a very long, sometimes exasperating, but mostly entertaining series. I think this series would make a wonderful audio book(s) to listen to on long, boring drives across bleak landscapes.
    • 2/5
      I was completely let down by the conclusion of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I waited 8 years for this? There was a multitude of unresolved secrets, confusing storylines, and dubious family trees. I feel that Snicket could have ended the series better, but I still appreciate the massive impact he made on my childhood. During long bus rides home, I would read this series and my love for reading grew each year. The ending to the Baudelaire saga was anticlimactic, but I thank you for my frequent visits to the library.
    • 4/5
      I read this a few years ago and I remember being really sad it was over. These were my favourite books when I was small and I read them over and over. This was a brilliant conclusion and I hope these become great children's classics.
    • 3/5
      This is a review of not only The End by Lemony Snicket, but of A Series of Unfortunate Events as a whole. As The End is the end of A Series of Unfortunate Events it seems a rather appropriate place to discuss the series as a whole. If you disagree, please remember there are two sides to a coin, though technically it could be argued there is a third, that is the edge, and clearly it has the best vantage point—it is from this perspective I write. I am writing on the edge, suckas.So, Snicket had been building up to this. All the questions, plotting, characterization, drama, mysteries, warnings, heartbreaks, broken hearts, flashbacks, back stabs, disguises, inventions, definitions, apologies, meanderings, repetitions, translations, interpretations, acronyms, repetitions, mushrooms, tattoos, guardians, orphans, and evil eyes lead to this. Really, to this? I give Snicket a hand for pulling the philosophy card out here and trying something unique for a children's series of books, but really, what just happened? What's the point? So we've come full circle; also, there are many questions about the sheltering of children and what it means to have honor. But where's the story in all this? It's hard to complete any extensive series to the satisfaction of its fans. I commend Snicket for writing a series that didn't talk down to children, especially in these final volumes, but it felt to me that the author was trying too hard at something, and forgot the story. When the story of The End moves, it moves slowly. When the deaths in The End come, they come much too fast, without a pause for thought. These are characters we've invested in for many books, some for as many as thirteen, they deserve more than poor, poor, poor Uncle Monty whom we've been lamenting over for the past ten books.So in wider scope of the series, The End wasn't that bad; it just wasn't right, at least I didn't feel it was. I didn't expect all my questions to be answered, or to find a happy ending, but I wanted more than this. My children agreed. Though they liked the book, they used words like “odd” and “strange” when discussing the story. You could tell they felt it was disjointed. And we all know that kids know what they're talking about as long as their parents agree.A Series of Unfortunate Events final ratings:The Bad Beginning – 3.1The Reptile Room – 3.2The Wide Window – 3.6The Miserable Mill – 3.3 The Austere Academy – 3.4The Ersatz Elevator – 3.3The Vile Village – 3.1The Hostile Hospital – 3.4The Carnivorous Carnival – 3.9The Slippery Slope – 3.6The Grim Grotto – 3.9The Penultimate Peril – 3.4The End – 3.4As for the series, I enjoyed it except when I didn't. It wasn't phenomenal or as funny as I had hoped, but it had its moments. I'd say the series largely picked up in the late middle books, when the conspiracy deepened and the humor became less forced. My children thoroughly enjoyed the series. When asked their favorite of the series, they offered votes of The Ersatz Elevator and The Slippery Slope. My youngest who is younger than the intended audience and only listened to the story sparingly would vote for any moment Sunny said something comical; he found no value in the story aside from Sunny. My own ranking of the series follows. Final thoughts: I spent my last year and some months on this? No, I spent it reading to my kids. I'm likely through with Snicket, though I'm still curious about Handler. I want more closure. I'm going to miss those Baudelaire orphans. That's it, The End.A Series of Unfortunate Events Ranking: The Grim Grotto – Book 11The Carnivorous Carnival – Book 9The Slippery Slope – Book 10The Wide Window – Book 3The Austere Academy – Book 5The Penultimate Peril – Book 12The Hostile Hospital – Book 8The End – Book 13The Miserable Mill – Book 4The Ersatz Elevator – Book 6The Reptile Room – Book 2The Bad Beginning – Book 1The Vile Village – Book 7
    • 3/5
      Ultimately unsatisfying. What's the point of putting them in a safe situation if you've been telling us for the later half of the series that the evil is inside of them? And so many unanswered questions. I'm not sure if those questions will be filled by other material, but if I come across said material, I'll give it a shot.
    • 4/5
      After 13 books, I find Lemony Snickett's style more grating than amusing, but overall "The End" was a fairly satisfying conclusion to the series. I probably would have enjoyed the series as a whole more if it were shorter (and far less repetitive.)
    • 4/5
      The final book in the series was fairly satisfying -- the Baudelaire orphans try to escape the world of treachery on a remote island, but ultimately prepare to return to the world and face both its treacheries and its treasures.
    • 4/5
      Looking back on A Series of Unfortunate Events gives me some fond and some bland memories. Some of the books were great and some were a little tedious. As I picked up The End I worried about how it all was really going to end, as the author has been warning the reader in each installment that it's not going to be good.The End finds the Baudelaire orphans on an uncharted island. I really liked reading their tale as they once again use their ingenuity, knowledge, teeth, and cooking skills to deal with a new dilemma. As I read it I began to hope...can it be that the Baudelaire orphans find peace on a lonely island? I won't spoil it for people who are reading or are going to read the Series, but I can tell you it's a fitting Lemony Snicket ending.
    • 4/5
      Not as disappointing an ending as Snicket seemed to imply it would be. I was very happy with the way things left off.
    • 5/5
      Wow, what a fitting climax to the end of this fine series! The final book takes inspiration from classic fiction and the bible, and with its pared down list of characters becomes a battle between good and evil. The ending is sad, happy and poignant- fabulous!
    • 4/5
      An excellent conclusion to this series. I would be reading more Daniel Handler novels if I could find them in my local library. Count Olaf taught me a depressing poem about the human condition to add to my store. Tim Curry's performance is outstanding. Moral judgements are yet harder to make correctly. The frustration of the Baudelaire orphans who would have succeeded in rescuing the islanders if only they'd been permitted by the islanders themselves is distressing, yet a common experience in real life. The further fact that they are prevented from rescuing Friday, the girl who has particularly befriended them, by Friday's mother is startlingly poignant.