Great House

A Novel

De: Nicole Krauss

Narrado por: Alma Cuervo, George Guidall, Celeste Ciulla, Paul Hecht, Robert Ian Mackenzie

From the internationally best-selling author of The History of Love comes this stunning novel. Great House follows the multiple owners of one writing desk and how the desk shapes their lives. A young novelist inherited the desk from a poet taken by Pinochet’s police. Then the desk is stolen from her by the poet’s supposed daughter. In its drawers, another man discovers a long-kept secret about his wife. And a Jerusalem antiques dealer uses the desk in his family’s study, which was devastated by the Nazis in 1944.

©2010 Nicole Krauss (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This stunning work showcases Krauss's consistent talent.... The sharply etched characters seem at first arbitrarily linked across time and space, but Krauss pulls together the disparate elements, settings, characters, and fragile connective tissue to form a formidable and haunting mosaic of loss and profound sorrow. ( Publishers Weekly)

“The most heartbreaking part of Great House, the third novel by Nicole Krauss, is having to finish it…As the mysteries of this beautifully written novel come spooling out, you’ll marvel at how profoundly one brilliantly crafted metaphor involving a mute wooden artifact can remind us what it means to be alive.” (Rachel Rosenblit, Elle)

“Krauss’ masterful rendition of character is breathtaking, compelling.... This tour de force of fiction writing will deeply satisfy fans of the author’s first two books and bring her legions more.” ( Booklist, Starred Review)

Great House

I totally enjoyed this book. Haven't we all inherited some piece of furniture , or a book, or something that connects us with a very interesting past?

This book grabbed my attention from the very beginning. It is worth a good listen. I even sat down in my living room, after everybody else was in bed ... I enjoyed it.

Great rewards for the patient listener

It's easy to be put off this book...it is densely written, with each character focusing at an almost excruciating level on their inner life.

It's not a happy book. Plus, the multiple narrators relating seemingly unrelated stories could confuse anyone who's not paying attention.

However, this is one of those books that will definitely reward the patient listener.

About loss, death and ultimately the meaning of life, it is a powerful novel, with richly drawn characters. It definitely left me wanting to know more about what came next; and it's one of those rare books that I plan to re-read.

Deeply moving and beautifully written

Although the author has said she does not write with a plan for the story, each section is beautifully written and read. Her images jump out and make you want to hear them again. This audiobook is worth taking the time to really listen to Krause's words.

creative

I recommend it. The book was unusual and creative. I think it fell a step short of connecting the stories. I'm going to listen to it again, something I don't normally do, to see if I missed something. I think it's a good book for a book club as it should elicit get great discussions.

Beautiful writing, but probably better to read it

This novel and its mediations on loss and loneliness and the connections that the characters from different stories eventually have with each other are hard to dwell on when you are listening to it. I believe that reading it would be better. I got a hard copy and after reading certain sections and seeing words repeated, I was able to make the connections that a careful reader would pick up on, which answered a bunch of questions for me about who is who in the novel. Just listening in the car, this was not something I could do, and I was happy I read it. The different stories all have separate narrators and this was helpful as they are interspersed with each other, and otherwise it would have been hard to know who was talking.