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The Third Policeman
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Ulysses
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- Length: 27 hrs and 16 mins
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 310
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Story4 out of 5 stars 308
Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.
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Murphy
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'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.' So opens Murphy, Samuel Beckett's first novel, published in 1938. Its work-shy eponymous hero, adrift in London, realises that desire can never be satisfied and withdraws from life, in search of stupor. Murphy's lovestruck fiancée, Celia, tries with tragic pathos to draw him back, but her attempts are doomed to failure. In Dublin, Murphy's friends and familiars are simulacra of him, fragmented and incomplete. They come to London in search of him.
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Finnegans Wake
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
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Finnegans Wake, the greatest avant-garde novel of all time, was first published 70 years ago - and people are still trying to work out what it is about. There is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker - aka HCE (Here Comes Everyone) - and Anna Livia Plurabelle, but also Finnegan the hod carrier (or was he a giant?), whose wake is the subject of the book. This is a masterly reading of the abridged version, with copious notes aiding comprehension.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Elucidating
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Waiting for Godot
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In a word, Brilliant
- By Gryfynn on 21-01-17
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- By: James Joyce
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- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
This fictionalized portrait of Joyce's youth is one of the most vivid accounts of the growth from childhood to adulthood. Dublin at the turn of the century provides the backdrop as Stephen Dedalus moves from town and society, towards the irrevocable decision to leave. It was the decision made by Joyce himself which resulted in the mature novels of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
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5 out of 5 stars
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highly recommended
- By Amazon Customer on 16-11-18
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Dubliners (Naxos Edition)
- By: James Joyce
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- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
James Joyce's Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the lives of the people of Dublin around the turn of the century. Each story describes a small but significant moment of crisis or revelation in the life of a particular Dubliner, sympathetically but always with stark honesty. Many of the characters are desperate to escape the confines of their humdrum lives, though those that have the opportunity to do so seem unable to take it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dubliners (Unabridged)
- By Samina on 02-12-08
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Ulysses
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 27 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 447
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 310
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Story4 out of 5 stars 308
Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, June 16th 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.
-
5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Richard on 02-04-12
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Murphy
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 11
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11
'The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.' So opens Murphy, Samuel Beckett's first novel, published in 1938. Its work-shy eponymous hero, adrift in London, realises that desire can never be satisfied and withdraws from life, in search of stupor. Murphy's lovestruck fiancée, Celia, tries with tragic pathos to draw him back, but her attempts are doomed to failure. In Dublin, Murphy's friends and familiars are simulacra of him, fragmented and incomplete. They come to London in search of him.
-
Finnegans Wake
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Norton, Marcella Riordan
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Finnegans Wake, the greatest avant-garde novel of all time, was first published 70 years ago - and people are still trying to work out what it is about. There is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker - aka HCE (Here Comes Everyone) - and Anna Livia Plurabelle, but also Finnegan the hod carrier (or was he a giant?), whose wake is the subject of the book. This is a masterly reading of the abridged version, with copious notes aiding comprehension.
-
4 out of 5 stars
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Elucidating
- By caz on 13-04-13
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Waiting for Godot
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, David Burke, Terence Rigby, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
There is now no doubt that not only is Waiting for Godot the outstanding play of the 20th century, but it is also Samuel Beckett's masterpiece. Yet it is both a popular text to be studied at school and an enigma. The scene is a country road. There is a solitary tree. It is evening. Two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. Pull off boots. Munch a root vegetable. Two other curious characters enter. And a boy. Time passes. It is all strange yet familiar.
-
5 out of 5 stars
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In a word, Brilliant
- By Gryfynn on 21-01-17
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- By: James Joyce
- Narrated by: Jim Norton
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
This fictionalized portrait of Joyce's youth is one of the most vivid accounts of the growth from childhood to adulthood. Dublin at the turn of the century provides the backdrop as Stephen Dedalus moves from town and society, towards the irrevocable decision to leave. It was the decision made by Joyce himself which resulted in the mature novels of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
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5 out of 5 stars
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highly recommended
- By Amazon Customer on 16-11-18
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Dubliners (Naxos Edition)
- By: James Joyce
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- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
James Joyce's Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the lives of the people of Dublin around the turn of the century. Each story describes a small but significant moment of crisis or revelation in the life of a particular Dubliner, sympathetically but always with stark honesty. Many of the characters are desperate to escape the confines of their humdrum lives, though those that have the opportunity to do so seem unable to take it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dubliners (Unabridged)
- By Samina on 02-12-08
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Excellent Women
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
Mildred Lathbury is one of those 'excellent women' who is often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations of life - birth, marriage, death, the successful jumble sales, the garden fete spoilt by bad weather'. As such, she often gets herself embroiled in other people's lives - especially those of her glamorous new neighbours, the Napiers, whose marriage seems to be on the rocks.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Whole New Pymian World to Explore
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The Wall
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- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4 out of 5 stars 134
Kavanagh begins his life patrolling the Wall. If he's lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he only has two years of this, 729 more nights. The best thing that can happen is that he survives and gets off the Wall and never has to spend another day of his life anywhere near it. He longs for this to be over; longs to be somewhere else. He will soon find out what Defenders do and who the Others are. Along with the rest of his squad, he will endure cold and fear day after day, night after night.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly recommended.
- By SJ Smith on 01-02-19
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Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know
- The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce
- By: Colm Tóibín
- Narrated by: Colm Tóibín
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 9
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8
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Story5 out of 5 stars 8
In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, Colm Tóibín turns his incisive gaze to three of Ireland's greatest writers, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, and their earliest influences: their fathers. From Wilde's doctor father, a brilliant statistician and amateur archaeologist, who was taken to court by an obsessed lover in a strange premonition of what would happen to his son; to Yeats' father, an impoverished artist and brilliant letter writer who could never finish a painting; to John Stanislus Joyce, a singer, drinker and storyteller, a man unwilling to provide for his large family, whom his son James memorialised in his work.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrator awful
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The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn't all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don't burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy, The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world's great novels.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Splendid
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 186
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 186
Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A unique and biting wit
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
Swann’s Way is the first of seven volumes in Remembrance of Things Past. It sets the scene with the narrator’s memories being famously provoked by the taste of that little cake, the madeleine, accompanied by a cup of lime-flowered tea. It is an unmatched portrait of fin-de-siècle France.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Life, A User's Manual
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The Country Girls
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and her attractive friend, Baba, are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world - of discovering love and luxury and liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin – where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
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Milkman
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,255
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,147
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,142
In this unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumours start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be. To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very, Very Good
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Gulliver's Travels
- By: Jonathan Swift
- Narrated by: Jasper Britton
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Lemuel Gulliver, a slightly staid ship’s doctor, relates the tales of his astonishing travels. He encounters the tiny, warring Lilliputians; the giant, sceptical Brobdingnagians; the ludicrously intellectual Laputans; and the idealistic - if rather stolid - Houyhnhnms and their bestial servants, the Yahoos. An immediate best seller when it was first published in 1726, Gulliver’s Travels has remained a favourite ever since. It was an attack on the politics and society of Swift’s day, but it is also a polemical, inventive, surreal, vitriolic, and wonderfully imaginative masterpiece.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not as good as I thought it would be
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How It Is
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- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4
How It Is, a landmark in 20th century literature, is one of the most challenging of Samuel Beckett's early novels. He published it first in French in 1961 and then in his own translation in 1964. He explained in a letter that it was the outpouring of a "'man' lying panting in the mud and dark murmuring his 'life' as he hears it obscurely uttered by a voice inside him.... The noise of his panting fills his ears and it is only when this abates that he can catch and murmur forth a fragment of what is being stated within...."
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 44
"Remember you must die" says the telephone caller.This the voice, and message communicated in a series of anonymous calls made to many elderly people. Including; Dame Lettie, a blue-blooded reformer, Godfrey - her rather irritating brother, and his once fabulous novelist wife Charmian. But who is the caller? And why are they reminding them of this final truth? It's unsettling and mysterious. The activity increases and soon a witch-hunt is in full force, with nobody beyond suspicion.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing story, one performance.
- By Alice on 09-09-15
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Malone Dies
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Malone Dies is the first person monologue of Malone, an old man lying in bed and waiting to die. The tone is fiercely ironic, highly quotable, and because of its extravagance, also very comic. It catches the reality of old age in a way that is grimly convincing, cruel as humor so often is, and memorable because of Beckett's way with words. A master dramatist, Beckett's novels can be even more effective when heard, and especially when read by such a Beckett specialist as Sean Barrett.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant!
- By S on 03-05-18
Editor reviews
Summary
Flann O'Brien's most popular and surrealistic novel concerns an imaginary, hellish village police force and a local murder.
Weird, satirical, and very funny, its popularity has suddenly increased with the mention of the novel in the TV series Lost.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nigel Nicholson
- London England
- 10-03-14
Imaginative brilliance
Would you consider the audio edition of The Third Policeman to be better than the print version?
Jim Norton is the best reader of audiobooks bar none. His reading of Ulysses is a revelation - making the book readable to me for the first time, but this is also inspiring - and very very funny for O'Brien's tale is a wonderful demonstration of how to make a nonsensical and unfilmable plot into something tangible and compelling. It is a perfect demonstration of how the requirements of logic can appear to be suspended and yet still operating at a narrative level. Totally brilliant all round.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- James Sheldon Sr
- 08-11-13
Terrific reading of a great book
Any additional comments?
This is one of the two or three best audiobooks I've yet heard (Julian Rhind-Tutt's Master and Margarita and Anthony Heald's Crime and Punishment both being worth a mention as well.) I'd actually recommend this above just reading the book straight, because Jim Norton's command southern Irish accents and total understanding of the text bring out the humour in a way no voice in your head is likely to. Someone should drag this man bodily back into the studio and MAKE him record At Swim-Two-Birds.
As for the book itself... well, it's possibly the weirdest book I know. Kind of Crime and Punishment meets Alice with a hint of Father Ted thrown into the mix. I think it's a (slightly flawed) masterpiece, others think it's a mess. But even if it doesn't hold together for you, it's probably still worth it just for some absolutely fabulous flights of the comic imagination.
7 of 7 people found this review 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
- Anonymous User
- 16-02-14
A tricky man with a tricky pipe!
What made the experience of listening to The Third Policeman the most enjoyable?
Wonderful language and beautifully pitched narration. Lovely use of odd descriptive terms
What did you like best about this story?
The use of language and the characters. Its not about the destination....its all about the journey
Have you listened to any of Jim Norton’s other performances? How does this one compare?
No
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Like the lovechild of Father Ted and The Guard on acid
Any additional comments?
Flann O'Brien wrote extensively in an Irish version of English. The odd grammar reflects elements of Irish sentence structure that helps imbue the language with extra absurdity. Its a shame that the influence of the Irish language will be superceded by the cocacolanistion of Ireland (and the UK) by the dominant American media culture
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Paul Snook
- 11-03-16
Get On Your Bike For A Ride Into The Surreal
An insane, comic allegory read by Father Ted's Bishop Brennan? What's not to like?
A beautifully crafted tale of the absurd that can only come from an Irish mind; lyrical, comical, and wonderfully visual.
A young man returns home to an unusual set of circumstances which seems to accept with disinterest and good grace as he is too engrossed in the study of the works of the fictional scientist/philosopher de Selby. Finally, when his crooked tenant declares that they are short on cash and suggests they rob & murder a local misery, our protagonist appears to willing go along with the scheme. Things take a strange turn when, eventually, the tenant agrees to divide up the stolen loot and lets our 'hero' fetch it from where it has been hidden. He then embarks upon a strange journey involving bicycle-obsessed policeman that inhabit buildings desperately short of dimensions. All the way through there are references and cross-references to scholars of the works of de Selby, and the intense and almost violent rivalries between them, which form a backdrop to the main story.
This book is almost a rite of passage for any fan of the comically absurd and Jim Norton is the ideal and logical choice. In fact, upon listening, one couldn't imagine anyone else reading it. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Neil
- Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- 29-12-07
On a Different Planet . . .
Many reviews have been written about this title elsewhere on the web, so there seems little point in going into granular detail of what it?s about here. Just visit them and I think you?ll get the general picture. As for my opinion of it ? to be honest I?m left in two minds. I started off loving it, then hated it and at the end couldn?t really decide whether I?d enjoyed it or not! Yes, without doubt it?s strange, immensely clever, original (almost a forerunner to Father Ted in some of the more comic elements - guessing a stranger?s name immediately springs to mind for those of you who are fans of the series) and contains some of the best writing I have ?listened to?. The narration is also first rate (yet another Father Ted connection here too).
However, it could just be me but parts of this simply bored the pants off of me. I normally get through a lengthy (12 hours) audio book in a week or two but this one took me over a month and its just under seven hours long! The reason - well there?s only so much otherworldly ?nonsense? you can listen to and not let your thoughts drift off. If you let that happen then you loose the plot of course (not that I?m sure that really matters at times in this case) and have to 'rewind' or take a break from it.
So ? should you get this? It?s difficult to say really. I think some will absolutely love it and others hate it. To be honest its complete rubbish but then again wonderful rubbish ? I?m not being very helpful here am I? Oh go on, if you want to try something different then give it a go and see how you feel at the end of it ? what?s a few quid eh? Now I know how it ends I may even have a re-listen to see how it all pieces together. How many audio books can you say that about? I think I must have liked it (probably)!
12 of 15 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- An Leughadair
- Scotland
- 07-04-13
An Oddity
As has been mentioned on another review, this book is not the usual fayre and thus has been received by many with mixed feelings.
It's an odd read: strange happenings - a lot involving bicycles - in pursuit of ill gotten gains. Treachery abounds in a place populated by unusual souls. I kind of understood the main character's predicament and so there were no suprises in the ending for me.
This version is well narrated, though I may have had the occasional quibble with pronunciation. There are footnotes in this book (be warned!) mostly relating to the work of a fictional scientist and philosopher, de Selby, which interrupt the storyline and I'm not sure how these contribute to the plot - really - but Mr Norton deals with these deftly.
I'm not sure I could recommend this book; it certainly held my interest on long, boring commutes, but is that really a recommendation? I don't think I would intentionally sit down to read it; in fact, I've had a hard copy on my bookshelves for a few years now never having passed the first page. Still, the audio was pleasant, but it truly was an odd choice of material.
If you want something weird, odd, strange and befuddling, this is the audio book for you.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Admiral Billboe
- oxford
- 28-02-18
cycling <br />
Probably the best cycling book ever written.
dont ride your bike again until you have read this book
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jillian Knipe
- 30-09-18
Laugh out loud absurdity
Be patiently open-minded and this book delivers an hysterical account of existence and reckoning, heightened by the pitch perfect lilt of an Irish accent.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Penelope Gardner
- UK
- 21-08-18
Be prepared
Don't listen to this if your are in anyway depressed. Its about your brain death and from my experience of deathbeds its spot on. A masterpiece and very well read. Black humour.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 16-08-18
brilliant simply brilliant. be the hokey .
I fear I lack the vocabulary to do justice the emencity of the intellect that conceived this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 30-12-09
Narrator extradinaire
This is a very funny story but the narrator makes it great. It is surreal so one must suspend logic to enjoy it.
The skill and talent of Jim Norton is unbelievable. I would like to know if he is Irish or not. He has the accent down pat. His ability to interpret the various characters, and there are many weird and wonderful, is fantastic.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Darwin8u
- 01-03-15
Hell is other people's bicycles.
"Joe had been explaining things in the meantime. He said it was again the beginning of the unfinished, the re-discovery of the familiar, the re-experience of the already suffered, the fresh-forgetting of the unremembered. Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular and by nature it is interminable, repetitive and very nearly unbearable."
- O'Brien (omitted from the published novel)
After finishing Flann O'Brien's dark masterpiece of absurdity, I wanted to jam a well-chewed copy of Joyce in one pocket, a copy of Sterne in the other, push a DFW in my back left pocket, put some dark strawberry jam in my back right pocket, turn left twice, exit into my tight little garage and immediately make sweet sweet love to the nearest bicycle available. No. Not yet. She's not ready, nor is my review. I'll pick up this peach tomorrow.
So, it isn't tomorrow, but time and peaches are relative in purgatory. This is one of those books that is nearly impossible to review, but there is a space beyond impossible where letting go of this book exists. So, let's press forward shall we? The prose is amazing, funky; it floats and bursts from the page. Like Joyce and other Irish writers, O'Brien OWNs the English language (it is merely mortgaged to us mortals). Reading O'Brien is like watching one of those strange kids who can keep a soccer ball from ever hitting the ground. Gravity just doesn't matter. But let's bounce back to bikes and literature >
So, Flann O'Brien's novel seems to exist in a strange purgatory between Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' and DFW's 'The Broom of the System'. It is full of digressions, wooden legs, bicycles, murder, policemen (obviously), footnotes*, and much much more. This is one of those novels where rules are murdered and post-modernism is both born and twisted. There are books that are written to be sold and novels written to be worshiped. Get on your knees fellow travelers and start praying.
Norton's narration is brilliant. Seriously, BRILLIANT.
*O'Brien was out DFWing DFW before DFW was born.
31 of 35 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jefferson
- 04-05-17
A Murderer Adrift in a Dantean Irish Wonderland
The narrator of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (1940/1967) begins his story, "Not everybody knows how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with my spade." The first chapter then relates how the narrator was abandoned and orphaned as a boy, educated at a good boarding school where he fell in love with the work of the physicist/philosopher/psychologist de Selby, graduated and lost his leg and gained a wooden one, came home to find John Divney running the family farm and pub, spent all his time and money on English, French, and German commentaries on his hero de Selby, and finally agreed to help Divney murder Mathers to get enough money to publish a "definitive" annotated de Selby index. For three years after the murder the narrator never let Divney out of his sight for fear that his "friend" would abscond with their victim's money, until Divney has the narrator go to the old man's house to retrieve the black cash box hidden under the floorboards there.
But when the narrator reaches under the floorboards, he experiences an "ineffable" fugue, after which he finds that the cash box (which he saw a moment earlier) is actually absent, while Mathers is present and sentient. The narrator has forgotten his name (which he has never revealed) and now embarks on an absurd, disturbing, fantastic adventure, ostensibly to locate the cash box. Cries of amazement regularly escape his lips. He wonders if he "was dreaming or in the grip of some hallucination." Has he entered an Irish Wonderland, Heaven, or Hell? Are the bicycle-obsessed policemen there eccentrics, angels, or devils?
The surreal situations are coherent and logical in a way worthy of Lewis Carroll. Sergeant Pluck, for example, explains that, due to "the Atomic Theory," by which atoms are "as lively as twenty leprechauns doing a jig on top of a tombstone," people who ride bicycles exchange particles with them, leading to this man being 23% bicycle or that bicycle 78% man, and so on. Did you ever notice that bicycles often don't end up right where you left them? (Thus Pluck locks his bicycle in the solitary confinement cell.) Best not to ponder what happens when a man rides a woman's bicycle or vice versa! Then there is the creative second policeman MacCruiskeen who plays a musical instrument whose notes are so high they are inaudible and displays a series of inter-nested chests ending in ones so small they are invisible. As for the crazy, third policeman, Fox, out on patrol for 25 years, the less said the better.
Meanwhile, the beginnings of the 12 chapters of the novel teem with footnotes relating to the theories, experiments, and writings of the narrator's crackpot idol de Selby as they prefigure the coming action of the chapters with topics like water, sleep, time, direction, roads, names, houses, and mirrors. The footnotes also mediate between de Selby commentators, like the two trusted experts, Hatchjaw and Bassett, and the "shadowy" Kraus and the "egregious" du Garbandier, some of whom may be pseudonyms or imposters, all of whom disagree on nearly everything. Isn't academia is prey to rivalries, forgeries, and unworthy subjects of study!
This opposing mirror infinity is a motif in the novel: footnotes inside footnotes, scholars inside scholars, codices inside codices, chests inside chests, rooms inside rooms, bodies inside bodies. . . It is vertiginous.
The narrator is odd. He is both honest and unreliable. We believe what he says, but note much that he leaves unsaid (like just what happened to his leg). After saying early on that he committed his "greatest sin" for de Selby, the narrator seems free from remorse for helping to murder an old man. He is both gullible and canny about "friend" Divney, knowing that the freeloader has been robbing their customers and him but letting himself get talked into killing Mathers for money and then refusing to be separated from Divney until the money has been divided. The narrator is not as bad as Divney, yet he is self-centered, as in his materialistic wants in "Eternity" and his big plans for "his" omnium (the essential divine building block of everything).
All of the above is written by O'Brien with great humor humor, preventing things from getting too bleak, bizarre, or dry. The scenes where Pluck lists a series of names to see if one might be the narrator's, or a rescue company of one-legged men disguise their number, or the news that Hatchjaw was arrested in Europe for impersonating himself, or the explanation for how unerringly Pluck is able to locate a stolen bicycle, or Mathers' reason for saying no to every request, or the narrator's conversations with his soul ("Joe"), all these and many more are very funny.
Another saving grace of the nightmare is the frequently lyrical, pastoral beauty.
"Birds were audible in the secrecy of the bigger trees, changing branches and conversing not tumultuously. In a field by the road a donkey stood quietly, as if he were examining the morning, bit by bit, unhurryingly… as if he understood completely these unexplainable enjoyments of the world."
But O'Brien is also a master of the disturbing detail, as of the police barracks:
"I had never seen with my eyes ever in my life before anything so unnatural and appalling and my gaze faltered about the thing uncomprehendingly as if at least one of the customary dimensions was missing, leaving no meaning to the remainder."
Audiobook reader Jim Norton gives a marvelous reading of the novel. His Irish accent ranges from the slight and educated (the narrator) to the broad and working class (Sergeant Pluck). He's also an uncanny uptight pompous British scholar, a nasal dead old man, and an italics-voiced soul. He reads every word and pause with perfect intention and understanding.
If you'd like a richly written unique book with flavors of Waiting for Godot, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the Divine Comedy, and the old Prisoner TV show, you should read The Third Policeman.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sparkly
- 22-03-16
Sort of about Bicycles and Policemen...and Death.
I chose this after a recommendation from list of bicycle themed novels. I was expecting an Irish Poirot, investigating murder in the countryside while pedaling about. Ha! The bicycle ended up being such a MacGuffin, the joke was on me. Instead, it is an entrancing and original story about fate and death. Events unfurl in a causative but illogical manner, as one would expect from a novel described in the synopsis as "surrealist" (though how did I miss that?!). I found the ending highly satisfying, like a fuzzy image coming into focus over a long, long take. I admit that I never would have picked this up if I weren't confused about it - but I am really glad I did. Kafka meets Joyce. Delightful.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Robert
- 18-02-09
Worth the Effort
It is hard to figure out where this book is going at times, however it has many comical parts and the narrator does a great job. It is written in the same style as Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and I would think that if you liked that book you would also like this one. The book might not make total sense until you finish it though.
9 of 11 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Emily
- 03-01-15
Now that was a fine pancake
On another continent, Flann O'Brien could masquerade as John Kennedy Toole. Delightful wit. I can recommend it without any reservation.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Harriet Meikle
- 31-12-14
A leap of imagination! Actually pleasurable.
Unusual humour which kept me listening on and off but could never discount it's originality which kept me listening even though I wasn't laughing! I genuinely liked this book . The narration was brilliantly done.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Josephine
- 17-12-14
I just didn't get it...
I am honest enough to say I didn't get this book and confident enough to admit that it was probably just me. I was able to follow the book, per say, meaning I knew what was going on, but the whole time I kept saying, "What?". I felt lost. Hey - that might have been the point though. The narrator was good - and really it was his soothing voice that kept me going. I kept waiting for something to happen. While tons did in fact happened, but they all left me thinking, "okay NOW it's going to make sense". That never happened. It is a well written book, but, well, just not my kind of book I suppose.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Ian C Robertson
- 29-05-15
The Other Policeman's Ball
I recall that in the 90s there was a series of comedic/musical shows put on by Amnesty International and, at least originally, led by John Cleese (Monty Python), called "The Secret Policeman's Ball". I have no idea if this title inspired the name of those farcical, funny shows (which you can still find parts of on You Tube), but it could well have done.
This book, often regarded as at the forefront of the Post Modernest movement in literature, has everything and nothing. It is full to the brim, yet empty of content. It is insightful about things that really are of no consequence. And it is very, very clever.
However, it is not for everyone. It is very difficult to follow if you don't listen carefully. Example: my practice is to listen to books in the car to work and back; but not this book. It is too dense with detail and the devil is not only to be found there, but finding him/her is not enough. You then have to pour them a cup of tea and sup' with them for fear that you too will petrify over time, turn into a bicycle or come to admit understanding of something that is not capable of rational thought. Put another way, if you like "Catch 22", you will probably find this book illogical!
I can't say I enjoyed the book. It was a bit too much like hard work. But I admire it immensely, I am astounded by its breath of literary allusion and I loved the Irish wit (what an Aussie might call, "taking the piss"!). The ludicrous footnotes to the works of de Selby are a good example of this.
I agree with the other reviewers that Norton's reading is nothing short of brilliant.
Finally, a reminder that, like all Naxos productions I have downloaded, there is a PDF that comes with the title. They are generally worth the effort to open up (from the My Books table on the Audible site) and that is true in this case, too.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Dennis
- 16-08-08
Patience
Stick with it; this book is surprisingly good,funny very Irish
6 of 8 people found this review helpful