The Telling Room

A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese

By: Michael Paterniti

Narrated by: L.J. Ganser

Audie Award Finalist, Non-Fiction, 2014

In the picturesque village of Guzmán, Spain, in a cave dug into a hillside on the edge of town, an ancient door leads to a cramped limestone chamber known as "the telling room". Containing nothing but a wooden table and two benches, this is where villagers have gathered for centuries to share their stories and secrets - usually accompanied by copious amounts of wine.

It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti found himself listening to a larger-than-life Spanish cheesemaker named Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras as he spun an odd and compelling tale about a piece of cheese. An unusual piece of cheese. Made from an old family recipe, Ambrosio’s cheese was reputed to be among the finest in the world, and was said to hold mystical qualities. Eating it, some claimed, conjured long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong.... By the time the two men exited the telling room that evening, Paterniti was hooked. Soon he was fully embroiled in village life, relocating his young family to Guzmán in order to chase the truth about this cheese and explore the fairy tale-like place where the villagers conversed with farm animals, lived by an ancient Castilian code of honor, and made their wine and food by hand, from the grapes growing on a nearby hill and the flocks of sheep floating over the Meseta.

What Paterniti ultimately discovers there in the highlands of Castile is nothing like the idyllic slow-food fable he first imagined. Instead, he’s sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery, a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village begins to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti finds himself implicated in the very story he is writing.

Equal parts mystery and memoir, travelogue and history, The Telling Room is an astonishing work of literary nonfiction by one of our most accomplished storytellers.

A moving exploration of happiness, friendship, and betrayal, The Telling Room introduces us to Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras, an unforgettable real-life literary hero, while also holding a mirror up to the world, fully alive to the power of stories that define and sustain us.

©2013 Michael Paterniti (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Digressions on top of digressions on top of....

I thought this book would never end! The author was very unfocused and rambled on and on. His digressions were endless. For example, while telling of the cheesemaker and how he ended up driving a truck, he somehow got onto the history of Pringles potato chips, which was more then I ever wanted to know, on to some German man, etc. Wait, wasn't this a book about a cheese? He constantly deviated into his tales of woe writing the book and communications from his agent and publisher and excuses as to why he hadn't been able to finish the book. To make it even worse, he was totally unable to maintain a professional distance from his subject. OK, the book did contain some interesting historical information, but it was lost in all the digressions.

Great story

But very poor performance. It's a pity to spoil such a vibrant story with an act that does not have any relation with the spirit of the story, the flow or of the tradition. Audible consider the re-recording of the book...

And while listening, have some cheese to eat around, you will not resist:)

Starts out great but loses it along the way

I really wanted to love this book. Loyalty, family, history, cheese. Fantastic, right?

Unfortunately, the author gets hopelessly bogged down in his story, and this book (which is WAAAY too long), turns into a book about an author getting bogged down by a book he can't finish writing.

When "the end" finally came, I really had no idea why, and found myself saying, "Really?"

I've said the book is too long, and I mean that. Much of the repeated descriptions of the towns and the land and the (extensive) history of Spain seemed like filler, or maybe something to keep the author's mind working while he tried to figure out what his content should be.

I don't NOT recommend this book, but I don't really recommend it either. The story of the cheese is pretty compelling. I'm just not sure it's worth listening this many hours to get it.

A word on the performance: L.J. Ganser read with enthusiasm, but his over-enunciation of every single word (not just the Spanish) was grating and incredibly distracting.

A little too long but good nevertheless

Is there anything you would change about this book?

First time I've found the reader to detract. Too much artifice/contrived in words chosen.

What did you like best about this story?

Humor, learned a lot about Spain, history of Spain and world incorporated in to story,

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of L.J. Ganser?

ANYONE.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

Any additional comments?

Too long - not enough pace in story. Too much digression and redundant.

Culture of Spain

Loved it. Hard to get going but then you get sucked in and mesmerized. It's not about cheese really, bit then it is. It is about family and Spanish culture and wine making and drinking and campadrees and love and friendship.

Unbearable narration.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. The narration made it impossible for me to stick with this book. The reader was over the top and stilted--cringe-worthy. He mispronounced a number of words and was just wrong for the book. Maybe he'd be good with self-help books, but not literature.

What did you like best about this story?

Terrific story and well written.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator read this as though he was reading a storybook to children. His delivery was just too emotive...I tried to block it out so I could hear the words, but it was too much for me. I want to point out, however, that many Audiobook readers appeared to like the narration, so it just may be a style that doesn't work for me. I like a flatter, quieter reading so that I am hearing the words, not the narrator's PERFORMANCE of them. This narrator was like a very bad actor in a high school play...again, that's how it came off to me. Best to listen to a clip first.

Was The Telling Room worth the listening time?

Not sure. Depends on whether you can accept the narrator's style. Would recommend reading the print version, though. I think it's probably a wonderful book.

Narrative

I had to stop listening because the narrative was too boring. I listen while I drive and was falling asleep. The story really interests me but I couldn’t get beyond the narrative.

Overly long and meandering.

Would you try another book from Michael Paterniti and/or L.J. Ganser?

Probably not

If you’ve listened to books by Michael Paterniti before, how does this one compare?

n/a

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Mostly OK narrator, but he consistently butchered the pronunciation of several Spanish words. That was a serious problem throughout and could have been corrected since the words were fairly common and not difficult.

Was The Telling Room worth the listening time?

Moderately so.

Any additional comments?

The story line of Ambrosio and the Spanish village is reasonably interesting, although the angle of an overworked American discovering a link to a simpler time through Ambrosio is a bit simplistic. A bigger problem is the meandering nature of the digressions, including too many details about the author's own writing of the book. That part is frankly much less interesting and the book would have been better at about 2/3 of its present length. At times the writing style is too self consciously clever and that detracts from the overall flow. The message that each person's own story constitutes a unique distortion of reality is not surprising and a bit predictable.

So Boring

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. There is no story

Has The Telling Room turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

How did the narrator detract from the book?

no

Could you see The Telling Room being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

no

Any additional comments?

It just went on and on. Couldn't wait for it to be over

awfully long winded ...

and not much point to it. At times lyrical, then boring. I struggled to finish it. If it hadn't been a book club group read, I would have stopped about 1/3 in. The author probably thinks he is enticing us all to move to Catalan. It sounded unbearably grim. All those fueds and grudges! The story-telling elements were interesting.