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The Hearing Trumpet

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The Hearing Trumpet

By: Leonora Carrington
Narrated by: Siân Phillips
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About this listen

Surreal and splendidly unconventional, The Hearing Trumpet is an apocalyptic fairy-tale quest about an occult old ladies' home and the spry nonagenarian who ends up there. After coming into possession of a hearing trumpet, 92-year-old Marian Leatherby discovers her son's plans to send her to a nursing home. But this is no ordinary place.... Here there are strange rituals, orgiastic nuns, levitating abbesses, animalistic humans, humanistic animals, a search for the Holy Grail, and a plan to escape to Lapland and knit a tent....

Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington's novel is an exhilarating journey brimming with laugh-out-loud humor and absurd lunacy.

©1976 Leonora Carrington (P)2017 Naxos AudioBooks Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction Witty
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The great feminist classic, gloriously irreverent, screamingly funny and superbly read by Sian Phillips. Life is not complete without reading this novel.

Sublime

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A quirky character driven story. I felt it didn’t meet my expectations that were made from what other people told me of it. I liked it but it wasn’t very memorable but it does have a strange ending. In my opinion, this book is a marmite book you will either love it or hate it. There is no middle ground with this one I’m afraid.

An okay read...

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an absolute fever dream, I loved the perspective of an older woman and how they are treated in society

the perspective of an older woman was very interesting

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The story goes on many twisted and turns , stories in stories and deeper into a darker world wind of stories and surrealism as it goes on. If you like funny, wry unexpected female perspectives and are open to more than just a standard beginning middle and end I would highly recommend. It’s like taking psychedelics as you go through the book - kinda weird but makes sense and builds up as you go on. If you are into metaphysics, human psychology, societal dynamics of agism, magik with a k, read women who run with the wolves then you will surely love this too. Also seeing how a lot of the 1 star reviews were seemingly by men which is not a surprise haha. Everyone can have an opinion but mine is that this is an excellent entry into surrealism literature. Performance by Sian Philips is exceptional, so many different voices and characters too. My favourite part and the bit that really stopped me in tracks was when she meets ………:)

Fever dream of the good kind

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Not sure what I expected but it is an interesting read. Very female led which is great, can be a bit confusing towards the end. Would love to hear other people's views and analyses of this book.

Very different, magical in a strange way.

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