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The Orchard Keeper
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
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The Orchard Keeper
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Summary
One of America’s most celebrated novelists, Cormac McCarthy announced his towering presence on the literary stage with his first novel, The Orchard Keeper. Within the pages of this classic work, John Wesley Rattner, his uncle Ather, and bootlegger Marion Sylder find their lives dangerously entwined in pre-World War II Tennessee. There, the men’s tragedies and struggles are mirrored by the looming specter of industrialization.
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What listeners say about The Orchard Keeper
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
- B34VER
- 25-04-19
Not impressed
I didn't really rate this, it seemed to lead nowhere. Shame as some other Cormac McCarthy books are among my favourite books of all time.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- matt
- 20-10-18
hard work, worth it
Even by McCarthys standards, this feels hard on the reader, he gives you nothing, it's fragmented, and tough to follow the plot (is there even a plot?).
but, as would expect, it is beautifully written, and feels intimately of a time and a place.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 07-02-24
Raw McCarthy style
I've liked all of McCarthy's books so far, but this one seemed too experimental and too brutal. I gave up half way into the book as the crude depiction of the characters and their violent and miserable lives became unbearable.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ash Roskell
- 20-03-24
Nature’s Rage Against The Machine
The discomfiture of three men, against the backdrop of industrialisation and institutionalisation of their once simpler worlds is depicted, tellingly, during the interwar years of 20th century rural America.
Each character represents one of three generations, who’s stories converge and then part again, as they each grapple in their own unique ways with new and unfamiliar regulations and technologies that bear an unwelcome influence on their ways of life.
Amidst the violence and mayhem a fourth character emerges from the background, Nature herself, introducing an somewhat supernatural element, suggesting greater forces at work.
It is one of McCarthy’s better respected novels, certainly more easily digested than some of his earlier works. And it is quite brilliantly structured, especially if the reader goes in knowing that Nature is a patient, dispassionate character, bearing humanity’s assaults with equanimity, gradually reclaiming losses, on her own indifferent terms.
Rather moving and sad, as opposed to the simply dark and cruel.
Sadly, the narration is halting and frequently just plain bad.
It can be difficult to follow McCarthy’s breaks in narrative thread and timelines, at the best of times. But this narrator’s continual pauses in the wrong . . . places of a sentence, as though he’s figuring out how to read on the spot, or discovering a word for the first time, really takes one out of the experience. I wish Richard Poe had done this book.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Jill MacDonald
- 18-10-23
I think I'm giving in
it may be a harsh review but I am into chapter 2 and I have next to no idea what is going on.
although it is beautifully written the first part of the book feels like the ramblings of a madman.
I want to continue but i don't really see the point.
shame really as I was looking forward to getting into some of the early works.
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