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Title: Old Goriot
Author: Honoré de Balzac
Narrator: Frederick Davidson
Format: Unabridged
Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-23-11
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 18 votes
Genres: Classics, World Literature
Publisher's Summary:
Balzacs universally loved novel explores the great theme of money and its effect on the human character. Old Goriot is a lodger at Madame Vauquers Parisian boarding house. At first, his wealth inspires respect, but as his circumstances are reduced, he is gradually shunned. He moves into smaller and less desirable rooms in the house, and soon his only remaining visitors are two beautiful young women. The mystery as to who they are and what is happening to Goriots fortune involves several other boarders, including Rastignac, an ambitious youth who hopes to rise in society.
With its complicities and alliances, mysteries and betrayals, passions and ambitions, the house becomes a microcosm of the grasping Parisian society of the 1820s - a perfect setting for Balzacs masterful portrayal of La Comédie humaine, the whole comedic parade of human life.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC (17991850), was born in Tours, France, educated at the Collège de Vendôme, and studied law at the Sorbonne. His father wished him to become a lawyer, but he left Tours in 1819 to seek his fortune as an author in Paris. He wrote eighty-five novels in twenty years, but his life was one of frequent privation. In 1850, he married Madame Hanska, a rich Polish lady with whom he had corresponded for more than fifteen years but had only just met in person. Five months later, Balzac died in Paris.
Critic Reviews:
[A] meticulously observed story of love and greedReminiscent of King Lear, it also resonates today with the clarity of the poets barbed penFrederick Davidson is brilliant, deadening his voice for the dreadful daughters and their ghastly husbands, as well as portraying each ridiculous tenant in the boardinghouseBut it is Goriots deathbed scene that causes the hairs to rise on the backs of listeners neck. Listenerscannot remain unmoved. (
AudioFile)
Members Reviews:
Classic novel, classically done
Where does Old Goriot rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?
One of top classics
What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
Plot predictable but nuanced philosophical conclusions implied
Which character as performed by Frederick Davidson was your favorite?
Goriot of course
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
no, too dense for that
Recording seems to skip
Great story and the narrator performed well, but the recording itself skipped very often even though the progress bar and timer didn't show any abnormalities
Horrible narrator
I can't tell you anything about this story, because about five minutes in, I refused to listen any further. This narrator sounds like the biggest pr-ck in the world: super smarmy, full of himself, with an irritating inflection pattern. I didn't want my introduction to Balzac to be colored by so terrible a narrator. If I could return this, I would since I know with certainty that I won't be listening to it any more than the very little I have already.
