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Of Human Bondage
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 25 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's summary
One of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, W. Somerset Maugham's masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, gives a harrowing depiction of unrequited love. Philip Carey, a sensitive orphan born with a clubfoot, finds himself in desperate need of passion and inspiration. He abandons his studies to travel, first to Heidelberg and then to Paris, where he nurses ambitions of becoming a great artist.
Philip's youthful idealism erodes, however, as he comes face-to-face with his own mediocrity and lack of impact on the world. After returning to London to study medicine, he becomes wildly infatuated with Mildred, a vulgar, tawdry waitress, and begins a doomed love affair that will change the course of his life.
First published in 1915, the semi-autobiographical Of Human Bondage combines the values left over from the Victorian era with the prevailing irony and despair of the early 20th century. Unsentimental yet bursting with deep feeling, Of Human Bondage remains Maugham's most complete statement of the importance of physical and spiritual liberty, a theme that resounds more loudly than ever today.
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- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger". When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home - Howards End - to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.
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Fantastic Narration in Delightful Story
- By Wren on 05-05-18
By: E. M. Forster
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The Young Clementina
- By: D. E. Stevenson
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop. But when her younger sister unceremoniously bursts into her quiet life one afternoon, Charlotte's world turns topsy-turvy. Beloved author D. E. Stevenson captures the intricacies of post-World War I England with a light, comic touch that perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. Alternatively heartbreaking and witty, The Young Clementina is a touching tale of love, loss and redemption through friendship.
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Miss Dean's Dilemma
- By Jerri C on 05-02-18
By: D. E. Stevenson
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The Forsyte Chronicles, Vol. 2
- A Modern Comedy
- By: John Galsworthy
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 34 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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John Galsworthy's magnificent trilogy of power and passion chronicles the wealthy Forsyte family. The complete Chronicles are divided into three volumes, containing nine books and four interludes in total. Volume 2, A Modern Comedy, focuses on Soames's vivacious daughter, Fleur. Soames tries constantly to protect her but is baffled by the carefree attitudes in post-war London. Fleur and her husband Michael Mont host society gatherings, but her previous affair with Jon Forsyte leaves embers of a passion that are ready to ignite - with dreadful consequences.
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Very worthwhile
- By Jonathan Kalkstein on 09-27-22
By: John Galsworthy
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The Berlin Stories
- By: Christopher Isherwood
- Narrated by: Michael York
- Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
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Christopher Isherwood's dramatized memoirs are prophetic images of a country preparing itself to embrace Hitler and the Third Reich. The Berlin Stories includes two works published together: The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. These modern classics reveal in poignant detail the tragedy of mid-20th-century Germany.
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Nothing happens...
- By Tim Byers on 02-01-07
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North and South
- By: Elizabeth Gaskell
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....
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Delightful
- By Sally on 01-04-10
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David Copperfield
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Philippe Duquenoy
- Length: 32 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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David Copperfield is the charming tale of a young boy's journey from an impoverished childhood in Victorian England to a renowned novelist. The story of David Copperfield brings to life some of the most beloved and notorious Dickens characters, including the wicked stepfather, Edward Murdstone; David's friend, Tommy Traddles; Agnes; and the bookkeeper Uriah Heep.
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A wonderful Dickens classic, brought to Life!
- By Ron on 06-15-19
By: Charles Dickens
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The Good Soldier
- By: Ford Madox Ford
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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On the face of it Captain Edward Ashburnham's life was unimpeachable. But behind the mask where passion seethes, the captain's "good" life was rotting away.
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Treachery in the Troops
- By Mel on 01-08-15
By: Ford Madox Ford
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great, simply great
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What An Unexpected Delight!
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The Moon And Sixpence
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Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker, abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. While his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications.
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Roman a clef-abominable french artist Paul Gauguin
- By W Perry Hall on 01-22-14
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Greatly Unsettling
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The Razor's Edge
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The Great War changed everything and everyone, and Larry Darrell is no exception. Though his physical wounds from the war heal, his spirit is changed almost beyond recognition. He leaves his betrothed, the beautiful and devoted Isabel; studies philosophy and religion in Paris; lives as a monk, and witnesses the exotic hardships of Spanish life. All of life that he can find - from an Indian Ashrama to labor in a coal mine - becomes Larry's spiritual experiment as he spurns the comfort and privilege of the Roaring 20s.
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great, simply great
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What An Unexpected Delight!
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Roman a clef-abominable french artist Paul Gauguin
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The Complete Short Stories, Volume One
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There have been few masters of the short story as popular as W. S. Maugham. His dry wit, worldweary loftiness, pungent cynicism, and penetrating powers of observation have contributed to the creation of some of the greatest short stories ever written.
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A masterful production of Maugham's short stories.
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W. Somerset Maugham is one of the best-loved short story writers of the last 100 years. In this collection of his finest short work Maugham takes the listener to the sun-drenched Pacific islands where the Governor mercilessly abuses the inhabitants; to the story "Rain", in which the Reverend and the prostitute play out one of the most famous finales ever written; to the studies of chauvinistic Colonels, and snide conversations in Edwardian drawing rooms, as well as at the gates of heaven. As an introduction to one of the greatest writers in the English language Stephen Crossley's reading is the perfect place to start.
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Rain Down on Me
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Cakes and Ale
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Of all Somerset Maugham’s novels this is the most entertaining and arguably his best ever. Rosie is a barmaid with a heart of gold and a skeleton in her closet. Maugham’s portrait of her makes his novel fairly glow with witty observations of the contemporary literary scene. Features Willie Ashenden, who resurfaces in Maugham’s Ashenden.
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Great character, a little slow towards the end
- By Thomas on 01-03-19
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The Summing Up
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William Somerset Maugham (1874�1965) was born at the height of British imperial power. When he died, the British Empire was all but a memory. In Maugham's lifetime, as his civilization slowly disappeared, people from all walks of life, the proud, the urbane, the crude, and the desperate, passed beneath the lens of his dispassionate scrutiny. Transformed into some of the most unforgettable literary works of the 20th century, his experiences re-emerged in his plays, fiction, and essays.
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Portrait of the artist as an old man
- By Eric Chevlen on 10-30-05
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The Somerset Maugham BBC Radio Collection
- Eight Full-Cast Dramatisations and Readings
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Janet Maw, full cast
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- Original Recording
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A collection of the BBC’s dramatisations and readings of W. Somerset Maugham’s fiction, with star casts including Alex Jennings, Dirk Bogarde, and Janet Maw.
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Entertaining radio adaptations
- By scout86 on 08-23-21
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Cakes and Ale
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
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- Unabridged
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When Cakes and Ale was first published in 1930 it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they recognised portraits of literary figures now no more. It is the novel for which Maugham wished to be remembered.
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Delightful
- By RueRue on 04-22-16
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Far Eastern Tales
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Robert Powell
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- Unabridged
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Far eastern Tales is a collection of Maugham's short stories, all born of his experiences in Malaysia, Singapore, and other outposts of the former British Empire. The stories included on this recording are Footprints in the Jungle, Mabel, P & O, The Door of Oportunity, The Buried Talent, Before the Party, Mr. Know-all, Neil MacAdam, The End of the Flight and The Force of Circumstance.
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As perfect a reading as I've ever heard
- By Ted on 05-30-16
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The Citadel
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- Unabridged
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New doctor Andrew Manson looks forward to his post in a Welsh mining community, but he finds practicing medicine in such primitive conditions very different from his training. He makes friends, but also enemies. First published in 1937, this book was groundbreaking in its treatment of the contentious theme of medical ethics. It is credited with laying the foundation in Great Britain for the introduction of the Nation Health Service a decade later.
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great book, great author
- By h and l on 05-30-12
By: A. J. Cronin
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The Painted Veil
- In an American Voice
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- Unabridged
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A breathtaking story of a woman marrying, growing up, bravely persevering, and seeing what traditionally was a man's point of view with the insights of a woman growing up in the same way. An insightful novel in so many ways.
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The story
- By Anita B. Kirilova on 12-26-23
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The Moon and Sixpence
- In an American Voice
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
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- Unabridged
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A parallel story to the life of Paul Gauguin leaving everything for Tahiti and his separation from the rest of the world, with remarkable portraits of those along the way, narrated in an American voice.
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worse narration ever
- By Kindle Customer on 11-25-23
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Catalina
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Set in the time of the infamous Spanish Inquisition, Catalina is a novel both richly historical and affectingly human. Two eminent persons, natives of the city, were arriving after an absence of many years, and great doings had been arranged in their honor. In the Lady Chapel of the church a crippled girl prayed to the Blessed Virgin whose day it was, too. No greater things were planned for the girl, Catalina, but greater things awaited her.
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From a W. Somerset Maugham's fan: No!
- By Mitzi on 11-21-21
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The Trembling of a Leaf
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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When noted English writer William Somerset Maugham set off for the South Seas to regain his health, he gathered the materials and wrote the stories represented here. These are among Maugham's best, and the best stories ever written about the exotic South Seas.
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The Trembling of a Leaf
- By David Share on 11-22-09
What listeners say about Of Human Bondage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Rbjurnee
- 04-18-11
You won't want it to end!
Simple in writing but it draws you in and makes you relate and remember experiences, feelings and situations in yourself and friends that are similar to the best and worst characters in the story. It wraps up a little quicker then I expected after such a long audio but it's probably the best book I've heard to date and has had me thinking and rethinking situations, events in my own life. It was a fantastic listen!
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26 people found this helpful
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- W Perry Hall
- 03-15-17
Misogyne Bonded
First Work Out of Maugham's Self-Loathing, Chauvinistic Closet
This superb 1915 novel which nearly earns 5 stars. Reading it was a strain until the protagonist Philip Carey went to Paris to study art, after which I found it fascinating, then infuriating and ultimately affirming. That is to say, I loved the parts about art and Paris and his relationship with Fanny Price, the poor and talentless soul who committed suicide; I detested his main love interest (a unilateral infatuation of the first degree) in Mildred Rogers, the Cockney waitress who used and abused him without pity, and his pathetic lapses into co-dependency on her. Thus, I was heartened by Philip's ability to finally escape the chains of fear and self-hatred caused by losing his parents young, having a clubfoot and being attached by "love" to an awful leach.
Now, to my title Misogyne Bondage:
The enterprise of comparing this novel with his other three major novels, The Painted Veil, The Moon and Sixpence and The Razor's Edge, as well as his most acclaimed short story, "Rain," has been terribly illuminating. As I contemplated, I saw a peculiar pattern in Maugham's female leads (in these works, at least) and was reminded of an essay by Christopher Hitchens that I read in his brilliant collection Arguably: Selected Essays, in which Hitchens reviewed the Maugham biography Somerset Maugham: A Life, by Jeffrey Meyers. See C. Hitchens, "W. Somerset Maugham: Poor Old Willie," The Atlantic, May 2004. After re-reading this essay and traveling back through my memory of the four novels and short story, I am convinced that Maugham was a misogynist sparked by his self-loathing as a closeted homosexual.
Consider first,
“Maugham worked assiduously to create a persona for himself in life. And the life was, according to this admirable biography, a good deal more exquisite, dramatic, torrid, and tragic than any of the works. Born and brought up in France, Maugham lost his parents when quite young and from then on was farmed out to mean relatives and cruel, monastic boarding schools. The traditional ration of bullying, beating, and buggery seems to have been unusually effective in his case, leaving him with a frightful lifelong speech impediment and a staunch commitment to homosexuality.”
***
“An ideal way to “lock in” homosexual disposition is probably to spend time as a gynecologist in a slum district of London—which, astonishingly enough, is what the fastidious young man did. Though he would ultimately abandon medicine, he passed considerable time delivering babies in the abysmal squalor of Lambeth, on the south bank of the River Thames. As part of his training he witnessed cesarean births in the hospital, where death was not uncommon.”
C. Hitchens, "Poor Old Willie," supra.
Reviewing each of his four major novels and his most renowned short story, one is struck by the common thread: the females are all weak, wanton and/or wicked. These women are the type of which George Bernard Shaw so mordantly quipped in his play, "Mrs. Warren's Profession": "She may be a good sort but she is a bad lot."
Mildred Rogers and Fanny Price (who only appeared briefly) from the instant novel are discussed above. In the short story, "Rain" (1921), the prostitute Sadie Thompson is violated by a missionary intent upon saving her soul and after finding the missionary dead from suicide, the narrator observes that Sadie has returned to "the flaunting quean" they had first known when coming to American Samoa. "Quean" means "a low woman; a wench; a slut."
In The Razor's Edge (1944), Sophie Macdonald, a childhood friend of the protagonist Larry Darrell, becomes an alcoholic, opium addicted "slut" after losing her husband and child to a tragic car accident. On the eve of the wedding of Larry and Sophie (whom he's trying to save from a life of debauchery), Larry's pre-war girlfriend, the wealthy, wicked Isabel (who wants Larry for herself), leads a sober, fragile Sophie back to the path of destruction by effectively handing her a bottle of expensive vodka.
In The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Blanche Stroeve, wife of a Dutch painter who is a friendly comrade of the Gaugin-based antihero, abandons her husband for "Gaugin," who quickly casts her aside once she's served her purpose as a model and short-term concubine, after which she kills herself.
Finally, in The Painted Veil (1925), Kitty Garstin Fane, the heroine, is a flighty and self-centered "low woman" who, shortly after marrying Dr. Fane, embarks upon a lurid, torrid affair lasting two years and only laughs when initially faced with Dr. Fane finding out. Notably, this is my favorite Maugham novel, probably because he gives Kitty redemption. While this may seem the exception to my thesis, I'd point out that Kitty is like the others in her sexual promiscuity, a trait that seems particularly deplorable to misogynists.
Does this take away from the brilliance of Maugham's works or mean that he doesn't remain on my list of favorite authors? No. But, I do believe that being forced by then-existing societal norms to hide his homosexuality significantly contributed to his self-loathing, in turn leading to his negative outlook toward women. Were our culture more advanced, as it is now progressing, maybe Maugham would not have felt compelled to conceal his sexual preference and would not have been so fundamentally adverse to females and, as a consequence, might have been more kind to the superior sex (IMHO) and penned novels with more positive female characters or at least given his seriously damaged female characters more redeeming arcs, such as he did in The Painted Veil.
I don't do this for a living so I cannot afford to spend any more time revising or cleaning up this review, so please forgive any errors or if I have offended anyone.
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15 people found this helpful
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- nancy udell
- 10-15-15
Reader is terrible
Would you try another book from W. Somerset Maugham and/or Steven Crossley?
I loved the Razor's Edge and the reader there was wonderful but I will NEVER read another book narrated by Crossley. He varies his volume extremely and drops very low and soft at the end of some words, so much so that I cannot follow his rendition. I had to ask for a credit and get the other reader.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Brian Abel Ragen
- 04-04-15
Good Story of a Wounded Man
This is an excellent Bildungsroman, if you don't mind a central figure who is more buffeted by the ideas and actions of others that the active agent in his own life.
The reading is good, except for the voice adopted for the Mildred character. That was like something out of a much more comic performance.
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10 people found this helpful
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- joan b hickey
- 12-06-11
Great book, reader not good for the car
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
The performance was good, except he drops his voice at the end of sentences, so it's no good unless you're in a very quiet place. Even then , I didn't catch everything
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9 people found this helpful
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- Mr D
- 03-07-16
Frustrating
Main character provokes very little sympathy, and narration is not suited to audiobooks (as other have commented, narrator faded off dramatically at the end of sentences).
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7 people found this helpful
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- stacey a. wright
- 04-24-18
Wonderfully Absorbing and Thought Provoking
Of Human Bondage is nothing short of magnificent and Steven Crossley is the perfect narrator. Highly entertaining; highly recommended.
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5 people found this helpful
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- TJK
- 02-18-17
Classic
This is one of those classic books I could never read but enjoyed listening to it. It was work to stay with it at times but I am glad I did. Never an exciting listen but a deep look into a empty lonesome life.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Changmin Sun
- 01-27-15
One of the best stories
I cannot believe that the novel was published in 1915. Humans haven't evolved very much in the last 100 years as i could relate so well to the emotions expressed in the book!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Virginia Sanden
- 11-07-19
Narrator terrible!
I actually couldn't listen to this book due to the narration. I should have paid attention to another review that I read which said that the narrators voice gravitates between a loud boom and a completely inaudible whisper. It was actually impossible to catch what he was saying for the majority of the time. I gave up after the first chapter - so I can't really speak to the story.
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