A beautifully written novel.

Would you consider the audio edition of Where My Heart Used to Beat to be better than the print version?

Faulks is a brilliant writer and I'm sure that the print version would be just as enjoyable to read as the audio version was to listen to. I have read a few of Faulks' novels and enjoyed them nearly as much as the audio version.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Where My Heart Used to Beat?

I enjoyed the whole fascinating story. It was a pleasure to try and guess where the twists and turns of the plot were leading.

What about David Sibley’s performance did you like?

It was well read and easy to follow. I would guess that David Sibley enjoyed reading it.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, I found it difficult to stop listening, but life goes on back in the big bad world.

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7 people found this helpful

Engaging Story

Any additional comments?

I very much enjoyed listening to this book as Sebastian Faulks never fails to deliver. But can you really believe that two intelligent, strong individuals, (spoiler following) who are madly, deeply in love could lose each other so easily, and not put in a supreme effort to seek and search each other out, when the time was appropriate? I found it hard to believe, and a great deal of the book centers around this affair de l'amour.

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2 people found this helpful

Heartbreaking and Beautiful

This is an original and profoundly moving novel that moved me emotionally in ways I had not thought possible. I urge everyone to experience this book which is everything a great novel should be. The reading is flawless.

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2 people found this helpful

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this is a very moving and intriguing story could not stop listening highly recommended ..

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1 person found this helpful

Great read. Marvellous story.

A book that includes the sad tales of both world wars, exposes the shameful psychiatric services of the early twentieth century, but has romance and depth is a great achievement.
Descriptively astonishing and complex.
Some of the medical references were not perfect IMHO

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3 people found this helpful

Enthralling and moving

What an engrossing novel beautifully written and well-read, I had not foreseen some of the revelations at the end and, after I'd finished listening, sat for a long time reflecting on it. I felt incredibly moved by it.
I have only one complaint - why do the producers, editors, or whoever, not listen to the recordings right through? Near the end of Chapter 15 is an interruption, where the narrator stops and speaks out of character, to re-records something - it completely broke the spell! This seems to occur quite often in audiobooks and it's irritating and unprofessional. I'm just glad it wasn't in the final chapter or it might have completely ruined the experience.
Other than that, a fabulous listen.

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A magnificent and heart rending story

This book speaks of the angst of the two world wars, of love and friendship and sadness and loss
It is an affecting story and one of Sebastian Faulks best. I did not want it to finish

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'I remember, I remember'... or do you?

Dr Robert Hendricks is a damaged man. He is 64 in 1980, the year Faulks' novel is set, his father had died when he was 2 during WW1 and Robert himself had served in the trenches in 1944 Anzio. The core of the story is Robert's visits to the Mediterranean island where the elderly Dr Pereira, a neuroscientist, lives. Pereira had known Robert's father during WW1 and he tells Robert the truth about his father's death. The never-delivered letters written to Robert's mother during the war which are in Pereira's possession and which Robert finally gets to read provide the poignant climax to the novel.
Faulks is very good at cameo scenes - on Robert's first day on the island, a mysterious girl slips off her flimsy dress and dives naked in search of sea urchins which she shares with him when she emerges from the water - but the whole is diffuse with constant changes of decade and place. The protagonist - as it was in Faulks' 2005 novel Human Traces - is not one of the many characters, not even Robert himself, but Faulks' intellect. His interest in the history and practice of neuro science in the treatment of mental illness is his passion, and Robert is his vehicle for communicating it to the listener. The mix of his intellectual pursuits - memory, how we remember, how the past affects the present; analyses of love and madness; the changing philosophy in the treatment of mania and so on - never really gels with the characters as real people, which makes Robert's relationships lack the emotional pull for te listener that they should have.
The intellectual rewards of Faulks' writing are substantial however, increased by the constant tolling in Robert's head of the classic Greek and Roman writers enabling him to make comparisons with the modern violent world. There are also the quotations from poets, T.S.Eliot's later poems musing on layers of reality and time being most favoured, and the detailed discussions between specialists within the story.
There are parts in Robert's past which could well be cut, particularly his many experiences of the treatment of various mentally ill patients, but despite these less successful elements, the whole is definitely worth listening to. It's extremely well read and there is plenty to feed the mind. Faulks get 10 out of 10 for the title - taken from Tennyson's In Memoriam - as it echoes the sense of loss throughout the novel. But he gets zero for his sexual encounter with Anna!

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15 people found this helpful

Not my usual taste but an enjoyable listen

This is (deliberately) a rather navel gazing novel documenting a war veteran's journey to know his father, and how it has affected his relationships to others and himself.

It is quite thought provoking at times and banal at others. It's made me consider listening to similar titles, but I think they will always be low on my list if priorities.

The narrator really is good and his sort of discombobulated style really lends texture to the characters writing and internal monologue.

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2 people found this helpful

A Fine Book !

Enjoyed this book very much - made me think and wonder about my own relatives who participated in both World Wars and feel sad that I never bothered to ask about their experiences

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2 people found this helpful