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A Closed Eye
- Narrated by: Prunella Scales
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
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What listeners say about A Closed Eye
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- David P
- 05-15-16
The Late Great Ms. Brookner
Please don't take my word for it--I'm a Brookner fan and am happy to listen to anything she's written. No real story? No problem. Lots of brilliant moments and profound insights. Similar to her other books? Well, why else would I read it? Essentially depressing? The truth often is. The narration is exceptional and the book weaves Brookner's spell as always.
5 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- sigrun
- 06-22-12
From the inside
Would you listen to A Closed Eye again? Why?
I would love to reread this book, it's a simple but at the same time very intriguing story. It is as if Brookner is inside her characters, an inside which is rather blank except for chilling winds of emptiness.
What other book might you compare A Closed Eye to and why?
I think this is a typical Brookner novel, in a positive way.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Prunella Scales?
Anyone, Scales is terrible at this, she does not manage to give the characters in the story a personal voice.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes
3 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Anonymous User
- 11-01-22
In a word: brilliant
Superb novel and most outstanding narration by Prunella Scales, a true Brookner classic. Do not hesitate.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Marina Amarose
- 04-13-22
Almost unbearably sad . . .
This is brilliant writing about the interior feelings of a woman coming to terms with her actual life instead of the one she imagined.
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Performance
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Story
- SavvyShopper
- 07-16-20
Constantly waiting for a story....
Dull in the extreme. Devoid of plot or story. The incomparable Prunella Scales is the only redeeming factor. Her melodious tones are soothing to the ear, but ...she had nothing to say!
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Performance
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Story
- Cynthia
- 09-24-17
Boring.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
The narrator did her best with the material. She sounded bored; it was a boring book.
Any additional comments?
Not worth the credit.
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Performance
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Story
- Christine A Saunders
- 01-26-17
Beautifully written. Genuine heartfelt performance
Anita Brookner makes writing beautiful, evocative novels look easy, but relatively few manage to achieve the level of excellence that she does with every book she writes. Combine Brooker's writing with Prunella Scales' narration and you can do nothing but sit back in awe...
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- Lucy Frank
- 12-13-17
A subtle, unsettling and compelling book.
I bought this book on the off chance. I’d never read Brookner before but I’m now a fan. Her writing is bleak and poignant while also being really witty.. Her characters are all quietly struggling, forced to make compromises and frequently completely isolated from each other. They make their own private hell which they then unintentionally inflict on their children. Prunella Scales is a brilliant reader - she captures the strained, stiff upper lip tones of the characters as well as Brookner’s dry humour. Highly recommended!
7 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story

- Chris
- 09-04-20
Irritation
I resent being obliged to write any review and shall leave audible as soon as I can
1 person found this helpful
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- SM, Scotland
- 02-15-23
Thoroughly enjoyed this
I hadn't read any Anita Brooker before so this was a wonderful surprise. It is such a well observed study of the struggles of a particular type of life. The writer shows so much understanding of human psychology. I found the characters and their motivations utterly believable. Prunella Scales as narrator is superb.
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Performance
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Story

- sacha
- 01-22-23
Dreary, tedious, depressing
Gosh I regret getting this, I struggled through it, but goodness what a relief when I finished it. The story, characters, and writing are all tedious and depressing. The reading is fine, but having enjoyed Hotel du Lac, this was so disappointing.
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Anna Durrant is reported missing her friends seem unconcerned at her disappearance. After all, her life has been one of concealment. For years Anna submitted to the protective dependence of her mother, and even after Amy Durrant’s death she simply conformed to the expectations of others. Increasingly, Anna feels herself trapped by these expectations.
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Top Shelf Brookner
- By David P on 09-15-15
By: Anita Brookner
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Latecomers
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A novel about human relationships, focusing, unusually for Brookner, on two male characters. Hartmann and Fibich met at school and 40 years later they can no more think of living apart than of divorcing their wives. This book deals with their gradual coming to terms with the emotional gaps in their lives.
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Subtle Study of Characters
- By David P on 01-15-17
By: Anita Brookner
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Love
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Eleanor Bron
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
gentle romance begins innocently enough in the stalls of a London theatre where Catherine is enjoying her ninth and Christopher his thirty-sixth visit to the same play. He is a magnificent young man with flame-coloured hair. She is the sweetest little thing in a hat. There is just one complication: Christopher is 25, while Catherine is just a little bit older. Flattered by the passionate attentions of youth, Catherine, with marriage and motherhood behind her, is at first circumspect, but finally succumbs to her lover's charms.
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Sensible, touching and hilarious
- By Mitzi on 10-13-20
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The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
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one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Of Human Bondage
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 28 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Of Human Bondage is one of the greatest novels of modern times, and it is certainly Maugham's greatest achievement. It was published in 1914, when Maugham was at the height of his creative powers. The story concerns Philip Carey, afflicted at birth with a club foot, and his passionate search for truth in a cruel world. We follow his growth to manhood, his educational progress, his first loves, and the wrenching tragedies and disappointments that life has in store for him. In some of the finest prose of the 20th century, Maugham has presented us with the timeless story of one man's search for the meaning of life.
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Greatly Unsettling
- By Michael on 10-04-14
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The Enchanted April
- By: Elizabeth von Arnim
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This is a journey of both escape and discovery for four exquisitely different women, a month of bliss and privacy for four weary souls. Their refuge on the Italian Riviera provides the perfect backdrop for a story about the search for spiritual harmony within and without.
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Excellent book, excellent narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-05
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Fraud
- By: Anita Brookner
- Narrated by: Anna Massey
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Anna Durrant is reported missing her friends seem unconcerned at her disappearance. After all, her life has been one of concealment. For years Anna submitted to the protective dependence of her mother, and even after Amy Durrant’s death she simply conformed to the expectations of others. Increasingly, Anna feels herself trapped by these expectations.
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Top Shelf Brookner
- By David P on 09-15-15