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La Rabouilleuse
- The Black Sheep; The Two Brothers
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
Brothers Philippe and Joseph Bridau are completely unalike: Philippe, braggart and soldier, formerly aide-de-camp to Napoleon, is their mother Agathe's favorite; Joseph, a poor and aspiring artist, is raised in his brother's shadow. When Agathe is reduced to poverty and Philippe accrues gambling debts, the family join forces to focus their attentions on Agathe's brother, Jean-Jacques Rouget, heir to the family fortune. The struggle for his inheritance pits the family against Rouget's beautiful maid Flore ("La Rabouilleuse"), the apple of her master's eye, and her lover, the crafty and manipulative Maxence.
Will the greedy Philippe's efforts save the family, or prove to be their undoing? Will the talented Joseph achieve the acclaim he deserves in the salons of Paris? All is revealed in the thrilling and compassionate denouement of this wonderful book. Also known as The Black Sheep and The Two Brothers, La Rabouilleuse is one of the "Scenes de la vie de province" in Balzac's La Comedie humaine.
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- Tad Davis
- 06-23-20
Brutal poetic justice
In a way you could say I asked for it. Nobody stood over me with a ruler and said I had to read more Balzac novels or else. It was an assignment I gave myself. So when, in the first 20 minutes of La Rabouilleuse I found myself drowning in a sea of French names, I had only myself to blame. Of course, nobody stood over Balzac with a ruler either, and told him to start off this novel with exposition in the style of a telephone directory.
Fortunately the sea of names resolves quickly into a trio of characters who form the core of the novel's first part. Agathe has two sons, one a soldier and one an artist, and is living in straitened circumstances in Paris following the death of her husband. Her older son Philippe is a former officer in the army, a wastrel, thief, liar, and layabout, a gambler and a drunk: bad as he is to start off with, he gets worse as the story progresses. Agathe’s younger son Joseph is a painter, and with talent and hard work he's carved out a decent but not extravagant lifestyle for himself.
Agathe’s brother is Jean-Jacques, sole heir of their father, who could have come to her rescue many times over, but who instead has spent most of his life getting an even tighter grip on the family wealth. Jean-Jacques, a colossally stupid and shy bachelor, is being manipulated by his maid Flore and her boyfriend, the scoundrel Max. “Scoundrel” may be too weak a term for him: thief, murderer, gang leader, and sociopath might be closer to the mark.
As it turns out, Flore is the Rabouilleuse of the title. The term refers to a particular way she had of disturbing the water in her early days, when she was fishing for crabs with her uncle. “Rabouilleuse” doesn't mean “Black Sheep,” although the book’s title is sometimes given as that; a better title in English might be “Crab Girl,” which Balzac sometimes calls her.
Agathe, reduced to poverty, returns to Issoudoun to ask her brother for help. So the question of the novel turns out to be: who will get the Rouget money — Agathe and Philippe, or Flore and Max? It seems that another question will be, who will sink to the lowest depths of villainy — Max or Philippe? It's a satisfying tale as far as it goes, although Balzac applies a particularly brutal form of poetic justice.
Homewood gives his usual well-paced, precise reading, with French names so authentically pronounced as to be almost incomprehensible. (I recognize that this is my problem, not his: for some reason, my brain works in such a way that if I can't SEE the name, I can't quite “hear” it either. Fortunately many public domain English versions of Balzac are available.) His voice is rich and easy to listen to for long periods; Homewood’s narration is never boring. I will make one other observation, though. I have earphones that are strong on bass and earphones that are strong on treble. For a Bill Homewood recording, I always use my “treble” earphones.
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- Mark Mantel
- 11-27-22
Best Narrator at Audible.
Audible has many wonderful narrators from George Guidall to John Lee, but the absolute best is Bill Homewood. His accent is faultless and has even more depth and elegance than, say, Fredrick Davidson. What a treasure it would be if he did all the classics now in the voice of Cathy Dobson (who single-handedly ruins two dozen compilations that would be gems but for her voice). David Timson is great as are Jonathan Keeble, Neville Jason and Nicolas Boulton. But Bill Homewood’s voice, alone, is like beautiful music.
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Story
In the brutal Prussian winter of 1807, Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée suffered massive losses to the Russians in the Battle of Eylau. Many thousands died. Young Colonel Chabert falls heroically, his actions having turned the tide of the battle, but he is buried anonymously on the battlefield in a mass grave. Incredibly, he is alive, but severely injured, and digs himself out. On his eventual return to Paris, he finds his wife, the beautiful and ambitious Rosine, now remarried, and his fortune gone.
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Thought provoking tale by Balzac
- By Simon Brodie on 07-05-21
By: Honoré de Balzac
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Eugenie Grandet
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Peter Newcombe Joyce
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
At the beginning of the story the heroine lives an unfulfilled life in rural France, her nature crushed by a domineering and miserly father. Gallant cousin Charles arrives and acts as a catalyst on Eugénie's personality and emotions. Will her love survive the strong self-opinion of the young man and the selfishness of her father or is Eugénie's reward destined to be in heaven?
By: Honoré de Balzac
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The Master of Ballantrae
- By: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Told by servant Ephraim Mackellar, The Master of Ballantrae is set at the time of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and portrays the Durie family. James abandons his ancestral home to support the Jacobites while his younger brother, Henry, loyal to the English king, remains. However, years later James, who had been supposed dead, returns to claim his inheritance, resulting in a feud between the brothers that shifts from the Scottish Highlands to the Wild West of America.
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Gargantua and Pantagruel
- By: François Rabelais
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 34 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is a grotesque and carnivalesque collection of exuberant, fantastical stories that takes us from the ancient world through to the European Renaissance. At the heart of these tall tales are the giant Gargantua and his equally seismic son, Pantagruel. Containing magical adventures, maniacal punning, slapstick humor, erudite allusions, and just about any bodily function one can think of, here is quite possibly the zaniest, most risqué book ever written.
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The king of all the narrators
- By amazon on 02-13-20
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Tom Jones
- The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
- By: Henry Fielding
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 37 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Tom Jones, a foundling, is brought up by the kindly Mr. Allworthy as if he were his own son. Forced to leave the house as a young man after tales of his disgraceful behavior reach his benefactor's ears, he sets out in utter despair, not only because of his banishment but because he has now lost all hope of gaining the hand of the beautiful Sophia. But she too is forced to flee her parental home to escape an undesirable marriage and their stories and adventures intertwine.
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terrific story BUT
- By tom on 01-28-14
By: Henry Fielding
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Les Misérables
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 67 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Les Misérables is set in Paris after the French Revolution. In the sewers and backstreets, we encounter "the wolf-like tread of crime", and assassination for a few sous is all in a day's work. We weep with the unlucky and heart-broken Fantine, and we exult with the heroic revolutionaries of the barricades; but above all we thrill to the steadfast courage and nobility of soul of ex-convict Jean Valjean, always in danger from the relentless pursuit of the diabolical Inspector Javert.
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Use earphones that are light on bass
- By Tad Davis on 11-08-15
By: Victor Hugo
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The Red and the Black
- By: Stendhal
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Julien Sorel, the son of a country timber merchant, carries a portrait of his hero Napoleon Bonaparte and dreams of military glory. A brilliant career in the Church leads him into Parisian high society, where, 'mounted upon the finest horse in Alsace', he gains high military office and wins the heart of the aristocratic Mlle Mathilde de la Mole. Julien's cunning and ambition lead him into all sorts of scrapes.
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Slow and wordy
- By Chrissie on 08-30-14
By: Stendhal
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Tristram Shandy
- By: Laurence Sterne
- Narrated by: Anton Lesser
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Laurence Sterne’s most famous novel is a biting satire of literary conventions and contemporary 18th-century values. Renowned for its parody of established narrative techniques, Tristram Shandyis commonly regarded as the forerunner of avant-garde fiction. Tristram’s characteristic digressions on a whole range of unlikely subjects (including battle strategy and noses!) are endlessly surprising and make this one of Britain’s greatest comic achievements.
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Like discovering Frank Zappa in 250 years
- By Darwin8u on 01-02-14
By: Laurence Sterne
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Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays
- By: Michel de Montaigne
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 53 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1572, Montaigne - nobleman, humanist, and thoroughly Renaissance man - retired to the seclusion of his estate in the Dordogne and started to write. From his pen poured a stream of "essays" - attempts to capture the observations that came to him on an idiosyncratic range of subjects, from ancient customs, cannibals, and books to thumbs, war-horses, and the wearing of clothes. He made the study of himself the starting point for investigations into how to live, and wrote with a startlingly modern candor about love, grief, friendship, sex, and death.
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The Iliad
- By: Homer, Ian Johnston - translator
- Narrated by: Anton Lesser
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Perhaps the greatest poem of the Western world, The Iliad tells the story of 50 critical days towards the end of the Trojan war. Achilles has quarrelled with Agamemnon and sulks in his tent, while Hector brings his Trojans to the brink of victory; but fate will have the last word.
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Excellent version
- By Tad Davis on 08-17-06
By: Homer, and others
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- By: Victor Hugo
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 22 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast. Yet, set against the massive background of Notre Dame de Paris and interwoven with the sacred and secular life of medieval France, it takes on a larger perspective.
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More than I bargained for...
- By 1DrummingAddict on 07-18-15
By: Victor Hugo
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Fear and Trembling
- By: Søren Kierkegaard
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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From the perspective of an unbeliever, Fear and Trembling explores the paradox of faith, the nature of Christianity, and the complexity of human emotion. Kierkegaard examines the biblical story of Abraham, who was instructed to sacrifice his son Isaac, and forces us to consider Abraham's state of mind. What drove Abraham, and what made him carry out such an absurd and extreme request from God? Kierkegaard argues that Abraham's agreement to sacrifice Isaac, and his suspension of reason, elevated him to the highest level of faith.
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Great book and Formidable Narration
- By MFC on 03-06-20
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The Black Sheep (Classic Serial)
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Whitehead
- Length: 1 hr and 53 mins
- Original Recording
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Chris Dolan's dramatisation of Honore de Balzac's entertaining tale of family rivalry and fortunes lost and won, set in 19th-century France. Episode 1:After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Philippe Bridau becomes a reckless gambler who steals from his mother to finance his obsession. She foolishly continues to idolise him, and it is left to his more dependable brother Joseph to rescue the family from destitution. Episode 2: Philippe's gambling has left his family destitute and his political activities have landed him in jail.
By: Honoré de Balzac
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Cousin Bette
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Johanna Ward
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The Bette referred to in this magnificent novel's title is Lisbeth Fischer, an excruciatingly cunning poor relation who both depends upon and nurses a terrible grudge against the family of her beautiful cousin, Adeline. That family is slowly being ruined by the uncontrollable sexual appetites of Adeline's husband, Baron Hulot - appetites that will, in time, give Cousin Bette opportunity to exact her vengeance.
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Narrator!
- By Murasaki on 12-03-06
By: Honoré de Balzac
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The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
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The Idiot
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
- Length: 24 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin is one of the great characters in Russian literature. Is he a saint or just naïve? Is he an idealist or, as many in General Epanchin's society feel, an "idiot"? Certainly his return to St. Petersburg after years in a Swiss clinic has a dramatic effect on the beautiful Aglaia, youngest of the Epanchin daughters, and on the charismatic but willful Nastasya Filippovna. As he paints a vivid picture of Russian society, Dostoyevsky shows how principles conflict with emotions - with tragic results.
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Moments of surprise.
- By Theo on 05-02-18
Related to this topic
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You Shouldn’t Have Come Here
- By: Jeneva Rose
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden, Andi Arndt
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Story
Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives at the idyllic getaway, she’s pleased to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells—and he’s eager to introduce her to his easygoing way of life. But there are things Grace discovers that she’s not too pleased about: a lack of cell phone service. A missing woman. And a feeling that something isn’t right with the ranch.