Love the story, but not the narrator's 'voices'.

Pride and Prejudice with it's tight plotting and wonderful characters never fails to lift my spirits, be it in book or film form, so I was looking forward to the experience of listening to it as an audio book. Unfortunately I often felt irritated by some of the character voices the narrator created. Poor Charlotte Lucas sounded like a country bumpkin, Mr Bingley had an odd kind of Northern-ish accent, and Mr Bennett was a croaky old man instead of an ironic wit; Mrs Bennett and Mr Collins didn't fare any better either! I can't help wishing I had paid a bit more and bought the Juliet Stevenson version, as I would imagine her voice to be perfect for reading Jane Austen.

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I'm glad it's over

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Definitely not. I hardly ever met such a boring book. I had this on my list for 7 years, honesty, I just could not get over 1,5 hour ever. I appreciate that this is something like a jewel of classics, I know that for the time of writing this must have been an enlightening work, I acknowledge that for literary experts this brings up a great insight of 19th century society. For me this was a book about bunch of pretentious and generally stupid (or naive at the best) people who ranted on about silly things in a silly manner. The only likable person in the whole story was Mr. Bennet who as the only one had some wit and humour about him. (Maybe I lost the information within the years of listening, but I cannot understand how such a clever guy could end up with such a stupid wife.)

Has Pride and Prejudice put you off other books in this genre?

Oh, yes! I will never touch Jane Austen again, unless I want to die of boredom. I hope the TV version with Collin Firth will bring up the better things and suppress the worse. I have been avoiding watching it just for sake of listening to the book first.

What does Helen Lisanti bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

She has quite a comfortable voice for my liking and I felt fine listening to her.

Did Pride and Prejudice inspire you to do anything?

Watching the TV version to compare both.

Any additional comments?

Take my review as a personal opinion. I believe that there are many people who will enjoy the story and love the way it has been described. For me, I know now what to avoid in the future.

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Stunning

Brilliant, this is the first book I have listened to that had been narrated by Helen Lisanti and I was pleasently suprised.

She did both Miss Bennett and Mr Darcy proud!!

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What a lovely book

I could only describe this book as lovely. It has to be a part of everyone's collection. If you are looking for something that is light hearted, witty and basically - lovely - AND if you have never read it before as I hadn't (I have seen the film(s) and the TV series) then you seriously must do it. You know the beginning, middle and end of this book already, as well as the characters, but complete it by listening to this one.

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Most enjoyable

A classic to be enjoyed for all time. Only Jane Austin is capable of such mastery over the language and period.

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