The Magic Skin

By: Honoré de Balzac

Narrated by: John Bolen

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

"The possession of power, no matter how enormous, does not bring the knowledge how to use it." Raphael, a failed writer, deep in debt, and unrequited in love, is about to take a suicidal plunge into the Seine River. Just in time, he discovers the "Magic Skin" in an antiquity shop. Its supernatural powers grant every wish but it extracts a terrible toll! This parable depicts the malaise of 19th century France.

©2002 Tantor Media Incorporated

poor reading

What a lousy reading! There were so many fake French accents, ALL of them unneccessary, that the book is unintelligible. I gave up after two hours. Don't waste your time or money.

Unbearable to listen to the reading!

As other reviewers have said, this Balzac novel does start off slooooowly. Which might be OK if the reader didn't use an incredibly bad "French" accent that makes it hard to understand the words and that distracts from the story itself. My wife and I simply don't have the stamina to wait for the story to get better, since the reader has worn us out with his faux French accent. Two hours into the listening, we're giving up. Definite waste of money, this one. Now, maybe Cousin Bette will be better . . .

Not well read

This is one of my favorites by Balzac. Warning: like many of his novels (and even more so) , this one starts out slowly, then bursts into action in the second half.
I found the reading itself disappointing. When the characters speak, the reader uses a strange prody of an Eastern European accent--think Pepe le Pew meets Dracula. He also lowers his voice, and kind of growls which is odd, since for the most part, the characters are are very young--in their 20's. This sounds like no French person I've ever known (and I know many), and worse, is often impossible to understand.

When you *can* understand it, this strange accent seems to mock the characters, the story, the French...What a shame! I kept vowing I would not listen through to the end, but it is such a good story,such a great author, and my commute is SOOOO long, I was able to muscle hrough it.

He puts the em-PHASIS on the wrong syll-ABLES

What did you like best about The Magic Skin? What did you like least?

Did the real narrator call in sick? Does this narrator not have more than a passing familiarity with the English language? Yes, apparently, on both counts.

First of all, five stars for Balzac because, well, Balzac. It's a fantastic story, but I'm afraid it's rendered unbearable by this reader.

Remember when kids would be called upon to read passages of a story out loud by the teacher in grade school? Remember their flat, unremarkable, dispassionate dictations? That's what you get with this reader who can't even pronounce many English words (conjuring becomes con-JUR-ing in his hands), much less the French accents. A computerized LibriVox version would be preferable to this. John Cleese's silly French knight in "Holy Grail" was more believeable.

Unfortunately, this one is a pass.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Magic Skin?

That freeing moment when I decided to read the kindle version instead.

How could the performance have been better?

Simon Vance or the late Frederick Davidson.

Could you see The Magic Skin being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Not really.

that I could not even understand.

Unfortunately, the story was ruined by the voice actor who tried to do the accent of the characters. This resulted and often times unintelligible read. There are entire parts of the story that I missed out on, not because I wasn't listening but because I literally could not understand what was being said. Any other voice actor would have sufficed, so long as I was able to understand what was being said. If you are going to do an accent, at least do it well.

Vintage de Balzac but not a great novel

I loved the narrative and character development of de Balzac in "Pere Goriot" and "Cousin Bette" but "The Magic Skin" is too philosophical for my taste. Felt more like an essay than a novel. The start of the story is quite slow and I almost gave up reading at that point. The book is worth reading but I long for other de Balzac works in the mold of "Pere Goriot."

Could have been a short story

I didn’t hate the narrator as much as everyone else seems to. The chapter breaks were a nightmare that often split mid-word and I’m not sure how that even happens!

The entire thing was so prolonged and for no reason. The only decent lines in it worth the philosophical discussion are the ones used in the book description, so you could save a lot of time by just reading that.

Great move, unbearable to hear.

Horrible accent and monotonous narration. I had to buy the novel and loved reading it myself.

Perhaps one of the smoothest reads I’ve listened to

The story was riveting. The characters were compelling. The narration was superb! I would definitely read it again.