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King of the Badgers
- Narrated by: Mike Rogers
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
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King of the Badgers
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Summary
After the success of The Mulberry Empire and The Northern Clemency, which was short-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Philip Hensher brings us the peaceful civility and spiralling paranoia of the small English town of Handsmouth.
Usually a quiet and undisturbed place situated on an estuary, Handsmouth becomes the centre of national attention when an eight-year-old girl vanishes. The town fills with journalists and television crews, who latch onto the public's fearful suspicions that the missing girl, the daughter of one of the town's working-class families, was abducted.
This tragic event serves to expose the range of segregated existences in the town, as spectrums of class, wealth, and lifestyle are blurred in the investigation. Behind Handsmouth's closed doors and pastoral façade the extraordinary individual lives of the community are exposed. The undisclosed passions of a quiet international aid worker are set against his wife, a woman whose astonishing aptitude for intellectual pursuits, such as piano-playing and elaborate cooking, makes her seem a paragon of virtue to the outside world. A recently widowed old woman tells a story that details her late discovery of sexual gratification. And the Bears - middle-aged, fat, hairy gay men, given to promiscuity and some drug abuse - have a party.
As the search for the missing girl elevates, the case enables a self-appointed authority figure to present the case for increased surveillance, and, as old notions of privacy begin to crack, private lives seep into the public well of knowledge.
Handsmouth is a powerful study of the vital importance of individuality, the increasingly intrusive hand of political powers, and the unyielding strength of Nature against the worst excesses of human behaviour.
Critic reviews
What listeners say about King of the Badgers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Nakul
- 15-04-13
State of England
I enjoyed this one very much – couldn't stop listening once I started. Hensher's a smooth, but not mechanical, plotter, and has a lovely eye for rural detail. I liked all his characters, even the quite dastardly ones, and felt with them throughout. Just the kind of state-of-England novel I was in the mood for, not as formally or stylistically inventive as Martin Amis (thank goodness for that), nor as ultimately forgettable as J K Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, to which Badgers bears several uncanny resemblances in its setting and manner (it was published quite a few years before, I should add).
Mike Rogers was the perfect reader, just the right wry tone, and (though I'm no authority) a goodly range in accents – Yorkshire, West Country, generic gentry, bolshy teenager. I recommend it without qualification.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Keith
- 02-08-15
King of the Boors
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
No. It goes on and on. I got bored after 5 hours of listening and really couldn't face listening to any more. Not sure how I managed to go for that long.
Would you ever listen to anything by Philip Hensher again?
It would take a lot to return to him as a writer.
What does Mike Rogers bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
He does bring the characters to life which is commendable.
Do you think King of the Badgers needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
Sorry. I wouldn't follow it up. I can't face finishing it.
Any additional comments?
It really is just too long. After a while you lose interest in the characters. They didn't really seem real.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- common reader
- 21-10-14
Multi-faceted novel written for adults
If you could sum up King of the Badgers in three words, what would they be?
Complex, contemporary, intelligent.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Sam the cheesemonger, because I readily identified with him - as an urbane gay man vegetating in a dismal semi-rural setting.
What does Mike Rogers bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Nothing specific; although he is an excellent narrator with a good command of dialect. As a result of hearing it read, I do in fact intend to purchase the book, so I can re-experience its layered complexity in a non-linear way.
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Any attempt to film the book would distort it beyond recognition. Literature does some things infinitely better.
Any additional comments?
I don't think the gay sex scenes (few in number) are terribly graphic. The lady in Boots and I obviously have widely differing lifestyles.
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2 people found this helpful
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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
- W
- 19-06-14
Don't listen in the queue at Boots!
I did listen in the queue at Boots, zoned out for a minute, snapped out of it and realised I was listening to a particularly graphic orgy scene description and got terribly embarrassed that everyone in the queue could hear it. Didn't want to look unsophisticatedly embarrassed and make a show of getting out the ipod to switch off, kept listening and must have looked like a tomato-coloured-weird-expression-faced lady to all and sundry.
Ok, so I can't handle the graphic bits unless I'm on my own. Move on!
This is an interesting narrative on class divisions and double standards - the middle classes on one side of an estuary looking down on the council estate inhabitants on the other. Not for the easily embarrassed, but otherwise pretty entertaining.
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