Review of "Wetion" by James Krause

Audiobook: 91+/100 (9.1+ out of 10)

NOTE: We don't have the paperback or ebook, so we don't have the exact spellings of names, places, and other concepts in the book. We're going by what we heard.

Well, that was... an experience!

Wetion is one of the most unusual and ambitious audiobooks to come our way! It's got a lot going on. Some things work, some things kinda work, some things... well... we'll talk about it.

This audiobook is written and narrated by James Krause, who we presume also did the music production. There are maybe six to eight songs sprinkled throughout this book, we'll get to them later.

Anyway, this book isn't your typical, throughline story with a main protagonist you follow from beginning to end. Yes, there is a main character in whose head/memories most of these events are happening, but he isn't particularly active in advancing a plot it or in taking on any great obstacle or villain, at least not in the conventional sense. Instead, he's taking on themes like his legacy and roots—the things that have already happened that are bleeding into the present.

And, yes, we know this book goes on a side-quest about finding a cure for cancer from a prison spider bite experiment that Addy's grandfather ran, but... like, that was so out of left field and random, it felt like it was added in during post-production and a later draft when someone made the same complaint we made. We don't really consider that the "plot."

This book sorta seems like a chronicle, a reflection, a history, a comedy, a musical, and an anthropological exploration all wrapped in one.

It's tonally all over the place. Let's get that out of the way. There are times when it seems aimed at making the reader laugh and drop their guard. There are times when it's tragic. There are times when it's romantic.

You know... they say that modern humans are just cavemen with suits, ties, and suitcases. Behind all that is still a paleolith. Human beings haven't really evolved or changed that much since those days before the written word. And that's made abundantly clear when Addy, in the modern age, tries to pull off an experiment testing the theory that the memories of our ancestors are passed on in our brain cells. He tries to eat an edible substance native to each of the places his ancestors came from. Then, with a beer in one hand, he starts talking like a caveman from one of those early 2000s Geico commercials. He seems self-aware about it too, until he drifts off to sleep and experiences what he comes to tell Evelyn is the longest dream he's ever experienced in his life, saying, "This dream extended for what felt like an eternity."

This book seems to take the premise that memories are inherited and passed on just like written texts, oral traditions, and the genotypes/phenotypes that make us who we are. At least that's the theory that Addy and the author are testing. In fact, the book's description even says something along the lines of the author tracing his own personal DNA to find his roots. So, that's kinda interesting.

Ok, back to the audiobook itself...
We follow Addy's ancestors all the way from about 50,000 years ago, the Middle Paleolithic era or "Stone Age." This is the time when anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens) started using tools, fire, and migrating out of Africa.

Ok, so maybe we should get this out of the way. This book is advertised as following Adam, Eve, and their ancestors to the modern era (or something like that). However, keep in mind, this isn't the BIBLICAL Adam & Eve. So, if you're a hardcore Christian, Jew, or Muslim, you've gotta brace yourself. This isn't consistent with your religious texts. Instead, this is what we would refer to as "Scientific Adam." There used to be a documentary on National Geographic about this exact thing.

The scientific version of Adam ("Scientific Adam") wasn't created in the image of God as the first human being, instead he was a very lucky and evolutionarily gifted male member of his tribe—a tribe amongst other Stone Age tribes that often competed over food, territory, and women.

This book presents a lot of the things that made these people and tribes different. It's kinda presented in a humorous or comedic way. For example, there's a tribe in which men form buffalo horn signs with their hands on their heads to attract women. There's a tribe in which the girls and women practice "lip stretching." There's a tribe which doesn't bury its dead. It's left sorta vague if they actually just leave their dead because they don't understand the hygienic/sanitary practice of burial, or if they're practicing some kind of above-ground burial. Addy's progenitor, who we think was just named Adam (or something really close to it—they all are), finds this disgusting.

A part of us kinda felt like this book was poking fun at these practices and making the other tribes seem as foolish and goofy as possible. That's odd because we can tell that the author really cares about this subject and is passionate about it, so you'd think he'd be extra tactful and respectful about presenting these people this way. You could argue that he treats modern humans the same way (Addy and Evelyn are kinda goofballs too) and that a little humor isn't bad, especially in what could've been a dry overview of history.

Anyway, there's a huge flood that destroys the settlement and forces the few survivors including Addy's progenitor to have to pick up their remaining belongings and move.

Oh, one thing this book seems highly critical of—and is one of the reoccuring things throughout the book—is how religion and superstition are used to manipulate and control people. A lot of the strange practices the tribes practice are due to the religious beliefs and superstitions they've created for themselves. And by "they" we mean those in power.

Those in power seem to weaponize religion and supersition throughout this book. There are times they use it to stop incestial marraiages, and times when they use it as an excuse for them.

The narrative continuously points to how conveniently religion is twisted to fit what the rich and powerful want.

Later on, the Egyptians use it to solidify the power of the Pharoah and that of his family, presenting them as divine. The Babylonians and pretty much everyone does something similar. During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church claims to derive its authority from the divine.

Oh, and this book talks a lot about how the narratives and histories of these civilizations are twisted and embellished by those in power. The victors write the stories. There's even a moment when one of the kings has to have his death story twisted to dying in battle with a hippo (representing Egypt's ancient enemy) to support his son's claim to the throne.

There's a ton of exposition in this book. The author seems to be trying to educate readers about how the world was changing over the course of 50,000+ years. There are a lot of flowery descriptions of the terrain, the mountains, the wildlife, etc. On one hand, it's somewhat beautiful and a bit educational. On the other hand, it kinda draws the focus away from any semblance of a plot.

There are a lot of parts of this book that just describe the different civilizations in excruciating detail beyond what the character(s) on the ground would probably know (like from a semi-omniscient perspective). So, it often reads like a college textbook, or like ten lectures pasted together by somewhat-human stories.

And there are human stories, don't get us wrong. Characters fall in love or have crushes, sometimes unrequieted ones. It kinda reminded us of Kings of Stone by R Jay Driskill,which talked about how even people 3,600 years ago (among the Hittites) still experiences the same romantic, loving, and amarous feelings we do today. It's easy to forget that.

So, there is a human element to this and even some drama.

Oh, by the way, there are a lot of people named after (or who probably gave their names to) important historical and mythological figures, at least in the narrative of this book. There are a bunch of Adam and Adam-adjacent names (like Edom/Edun, Adama, Aram etc.), a lot of Eve and Eve-adjacent names (like Eva, Evelyn, Ava), Seth/Set, Tiamat, etc. We think these are supposed to be "AHA!" moments, like huge reveals, but we weren't that impressed by them.

Oh, yeah, Nephritite is here, so is King John, Simon/Peter, Charlemagne, William Wallace, and a bunch of other people you probably know. It kinda seems like window dressing, but... ok...

We do get one good quote form the William Wallace section: "Unity is only as good as there's bread to feed us."

We also get the Code of Hamarabi, which was discussed in Kings of Stone. It's nice to get a little intertextuality, reading books about the same things.

Ok, so let's talk about the music.

The music was a very ambitious and commendable addition to the book. The first two or three songs are actually decent. They're a bit off-beat, but they're decent. It really sounds like the background music and the singing were produced at two separate times, and you can tell they don't quite mesh 100%. They don't match a lot of the time. With that said, there's a certain charm to them. You know what they reminded us of? The jazzy little tunes that would play in those Bible cartoons. They have the same hokiness to them. And it's not like the child voice-actors who sang things like "Somewhere Out There" in American Tail were always on-tune. At the same time, there's a part of us that wanted to ask: why are these songs even here? They largely seem to bloat and already-bloated project. And they aren't particularly good.

Gosh, there's a song that keeps repeating "We're all related in some way" and that line, while somewhat true, sounds so cringe.

It all goes downhill after the "Belly Dancer" song, which was honestly kinda jazzy, although a bit random and awkward. Once we get to Crete, we hear this song about Aphrodite (we think) that's just... what? We could barely tell what the singer was trying to say. The background music in that song was annoying and flat. The lyrics were indistinguishable. It sounded like someone strangling someone with an accordion in D-minor.

The song before the "Belly Dancer" song was decent. It was upbeat and groovy.

The "Mary Magdelene" song had a lot of the same weaknesses as the "Belly Dancer" song. It's a little better, talking about the Roman legions and stuff, but the voice still sounds like it's being artificially amplified or run through some filter. It's all fuzzy and staticky. A lot of the music in this audiobook is like a Temu version of Peter, Paul, and Mary. It has that same pop-folk vibe.

Alright, we didn't really like the music, but we commend the effort in including music.

Ok, then we find ourselves talking about the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 20th century and Addy's grandfather's spider-bite-prison-experiment. And this is so tonally different from the rest of the book. It becomes almost like medical sci-fi or something. We didn't really like that so much.

The narration does what it's supposed to do. The narrator did what he was supposed to. There are times he steps up his game to do the accents and stuff. He does an Irish/Scottish accent pretty well.

Look, we have mixed feelings about this audiobook. It seems messy and chaotic at times. The author tried a lot of things. Some of those things worked, some of them didn't. The author seems to be very passionate about our history and the things that ground us to our roots. The book seems to want to promote unity and accepting our commonalities outside of what makes us different.

Check it out on Amazon!