Twenty Years After

By: Alexandre Dumas

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 27 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Originally published in 1845 as a sequel to The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure.

Two decades have passed since the three musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and stratagems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England, Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil.

Public Domain (P)1997 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

I have to agree about the narrator...

I love the story. I have no problem with the narrator's English accent. It's his odd, cartoonish, voices that I just can't get past. His voice of D'artagnan is a weird, clipped, robotic, monotone; most of the others sound like buffoonish characters from an adult cartoon series. It just doesn't work. If there was another version with a better narrator I would return this one...

Poor narration

This is third and last time I tried to listen to this book. It's hard to imagine a worse way to narate a book, especially the main character. Poor d'Arragnan sounds most of time like he has constipation and to listen his suffering for longer than few minutes is torture for the ears.

Please chance Narrator

I’ve heard The Three Musketeers with the narration by Guy Mott, and was astonished by it, to keep the story with Davidson narration was a major turn down, his pronunciation is very tiring for me, his impersonations of the characters very strange, just not a good narrator to listen to. I hope Amazon Classics and Audible put Guy Mott on the other D’Artagnan book too!

This version is great!

The reader is fantastic, his intonation is excellent and his English accent gives life to the characters.

You will thoroughly enjoy this read!

Good story, terrible narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

No. Nobody I know would suffer through this narrator.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Frederick Davidson?

John Lee, who did a marvelous job with The Three Musketeers.

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

Not in the slightest. I might have enjoyed the narrative that way, but at nearly 28 hours it would have been an absurdly long sitting. However, I couldn't stand the narrator's reading for more than a few minutes at a time, especially when there was dialogue -- he gave all the characters pretty unpleasant voices, and it seems the more central the character was, the less pleasant the voice he assigned.

Any additional comments?

D'Artagnan is portrayed as a shouting, unpleasantly brusque man with a half-strangled, nasal voice. While the narrator may have been trying to characterize him as a military type, instead he simply made sure that the most central character was the least pleasant to hear speak. The other central Musketeers are given similarly irritating voices. It's a good thing this book is Whispersync-ready, though, because you'll still have to follow along with the text sometimes to figure out who's speaking; sometimes one character's speech is given in the voice of another for a few sentences (or a few pages). At other points, I had to consult the text to see if strange emphasis were being used to make up a deficiency in translation, and eventually considered whether the narrator might not improperly understand what he was reading; the sense of some sentences was altered or even completely obscured by strange emphasis on small, structural words that should only be emphasized for specific purpose: "The robes OF the cardinal..." and the like. His phrasing was often unnatural and difficult to parse. Really, the narrator sucked most of the joy out of the audio for me. If I'd had the hands-and-eyes time to able to simply read it and leave John Lee's voices in my head for my mental performance, I would have. It was a chore to struggle through this version on my way to the next book in the series, despite the story being not nearly so much inferior, and now instead of looking forward to the next in the series, I'm wary of getting another awful narrator.

AMAZING story, DON"T give up due to narration

Would you listen to Twenty Years After again? Why?

Yes, yes! Dumas (and his team) is my favorite author. His talent for story twists, characterization, humor, banter, historical fiction, and plot pacing are extraordinary. I have read this book twice in my youth, and this is my first audio experience with it. To me, Twenty Years After has more character development as our four friends experience new and deeper confrontations amongst themselves - opposing each other, brotherly love, frustration, betrayal, and divergent paths, and a new addition to our foursome. To me, this book actually has more humor than the first - just a bit more thought driven style of humor embedded in the dialogue and syntax of its delivery (akin to the Bob Newhart deadpan style humor). I prefer that style because when the "joke" reveals itself, it becomes a memorable experience, and I find myself exploding in laughter much to the amusement of people around me. I can only point to my headset and mouth the words, "This is awesome!" in my defense to their confused looks. This book needs to be made into a movie, but without diverging from the book - I want to produce and direct it to maintain its purity! LOL. Oh, my friend, please read or listen to this book. If you enjoy swashbuckling period stories, this is a must experience!

Who was your favorite character and why?

Usually I favor the relationship of d'Artagnan and Athos as my favorite "character" but this story had so much development for Porthos, that he won my affections. I also enjoyed the development of the lackeys, and their stronger roles in this story. But, Porthos! Omigosh, Porthos rocked!

How could the performance have been better?

Well, the narration was a bit overdone. d'Artagnan sounded constipated with a stuffed head cold the entire time. The narrator made him sound the oldest of the Musketeers, which continued to mess up my mental images I conjured while listening. I would like a "do-over" for this audio translation. Aramis, well, he sounded like a cartoonish Italian-mafia-Captain Hook decrepit. I usually love Aramis, but the narrator's voice and line delivery for Aramis really interfered with Aramis' role as a Musketeer.

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

Oh, gosh yes! But there is no way because of its length....which I am not complaining.

Any additional comments?

Please get another audio version of this book.

Ok

Where does Twenty Years After rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Somewhere in the middle. Took a while to go through it. The reader wasnt always consistent in the voices, and d'artangion a hauty voice which really irritated me. The story itself was very political, not as much action as the first book. Too many characters to keep track of. Had to relisten to many parts because i missed something from zoning out.

Which scene was your favorite?

I love dartangian's wittiness. U see it a lot in this book

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

Nooo

Not as good as the first one

The characters are so changed in this continuation and so cynical that I didn't like them as much as before. Plus the theme of royalty didn't resonate with me, but I'll keep in going with the rest of the series.

Twenty plus years later and I still love this book!

I don't have time for a full review but suffice it to say that I read this book during my romantic years of young adolescence when we had no access to a television. I couldn't believe that Dumas had written such a clever an hilarious follow up to the Three Musketeers. This book is really a must listen / read to anyone who loved the original!
To those who hated the narrator, I completely disagree! His voice for D'Artagnon is a little bit of a jar at first but the insouciance in his voice and the sheer variety of all the other voices and accents sets him far apart from other narrators and completely in keeping with the self deprecating tone of the great Alexander Dumas. I give him a resounding 5.

Great Story

This is the third book by Dumas that I have listened to. I was not disappointed by it. Dumas' characters are well developed, the story lines are rich and listening to the story can be more delightful than watching a movie. If you are looking for historical drama, intrigue with bold and daring conflict, this book has it all.