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The Bertrams

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About this listen

We follow the mid-Eastern travels, careers, loves and marriages as three Oxford graduates explore the spirit of competition and the mid-Victorian money culture. This book is a remarkable novel full of psychological insight, satire, and social comedy.

Public Domain (P)2008 Audio Book Contractors, Inc. Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Comedy Witty
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while not comparable with Timothy West's Trollope audiobooks (I have all of them, wish he would record more), very much better than e.g. Librivox recordings by mainly American volunteers (usually several different volunteers per book).



So I'm rating this audiobook as someone who is used to hearing Trollope read by Americans. I didn't like it at first, but - feeling I was prejudiced - tried several Trollopes available on Librivox but not Audible. For instance, He Knew He was Right - which I consider one of Trollope's major novels - isn't available on Audible (or wasn't when I wanted to listen to it). The Librivox recording (by a single New York female reader, youngish I guess) is excellent.



In 2011, Flo Gibson died age 86 in the middle of her 1,134th audiobook recording (mainly of classic novels), I suggest she must have given satisfaction to American audiences at least. She couldn't vary the pitch of her characterizations, but made quite a good stab at upper class English accents.

really not so bad!

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Awful, just awful. This narrator's high, American voice rattling away at a gallop with bizarre intonation and stops has made this unlistenable to me.



I adore Trolllope and Timothy West has taken me through Parliament and the aristocracy with the Pallisers and Barchester with the Clergy. Ms Gibson could not take me to chapter three.



I wasted my money do not waste yours. I would have given no stars were it possible.

This Woman should NEVER Read Trollope

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If you've already read all of Trollope's more popular works you'll probably enjoy this book as I did. The story is mostly about folly and unhappiness, with almost no humour or parody, so I'd recommend the Barchester and Palliser novels ahead of this one if you're fairly new to Trollope, as they are much more fun. The writing and characterisation in The Bertrams are very good though, and it's an interesting novel for a Trollope afficianado, with echoes of Framley Parsonage and Phineas Finn, and interesting sections about travel in the middle east and the holy lands. Trollope himself was unhappy with the tone of the plot of this book which makes it interesting to read to see why he was unsatisfied with it.

Great book for a dedicated Trollope fan

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Having listened with great pleasure to the Palliser and Barchester novels, read by Timothy West, I looked forward to this. But the narrator is just terrible. The voices of the cast of characters are indistinguishable, one from the other, and all - including the author's comments - are read in without humour or change of rhythm. I would say it was monotonous, but Ms Gibson does put in strange rises and falls, intonations more suitable for questions occur in statements, and questions are asked flatly.



I do wonder if it is because she is an American. But I am one hour in, and cannot say that I will ever continue. Unless I purchase the book, or Audible releases it with a better reader, I will never find out what happens to the Bertrams and their friends.

Not a patch on Timothy West

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I really enjoyed the story which is why I persisted with the irritating narrator. I much prefer Timothy West. These English classics need an English speaker. Flo Gibson has strange intonations and rhythms to her speech that don't match the rhythms of the text. I found reducing the speed to 80% evened out the odd rhythms. Sadly the sibilance increased. Endurable, but not as pleasurable as it could have been

Irritating sibilance

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