The Awakening

De: Kate Chopin

Narrado por: Kim Basinger

Kate Chopin’s novel, a landmark work of early feminism, is seen as a precursor to the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. The upper-class Creole society of New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the 19th century is brought to audio in a stirring performance by Academy Award-winning actress Kim Basinger.

Edna Pontellier, vacationing for the summer with her family on Grand Isle, has a great desire to find and live fully within her true self. However, her struggle to reconcile her unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century South brings the story to a tragic conclusion. The Awakening’s blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity is the first in a tradition that would culminate in the modern masterpieces of Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, and Tennessee Williams.

Explore more titles performed by some of the most celebrated actors in the business in Audible’s Star-Powered Listens collection.Public Domain (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"If 'The Feminine Mystique' heralded the second wave of literary feminism, Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel, The Awakening, was a landmark of the first. Edna Pontellier is a rich New Orleans housewife who at first bristles against but then comes to reject the traditional gender norms of the fin de siècle South. 'The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.' Kim Basinger reads the closing lines of the novel - oft-quoted in gender studies classes - in a voice that’s as smooth as the waves buffeting Edna’s body and as resolved as her conviction that though her husband and children 'were a part of her life…they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul.'” (The New York Times Book Review)

Not my cup of tea, pinkie out.

I found this book very well written. I could relate to most of the feelings of the main character. The book made me feel very grateful that I live in a time that I can escape such boring trappings. I don't feel that it is worth listening to the whole book just to be able to say " Thank God above I don't live back then."

ONCE AGAIN THE "A-LIST NARRATOR" IS JUST AWFUL

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Probably if Kim Basinger wasn't narrating. Listening to her was like sticking a rusty fork in my eye!

Has The Awakening turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, it just continues to turn me off from Hollywood "actors" thinking that their skill set makes them into good book narrators.

Would you be willing to try another one of Kim Basinger’s performances?

NOPE!

What character would you cut from The Awakening?

THE NARRATOR!!!

Any additional comments?

As I've said a kazillion times before, I don't know why Audible thinks having actors narrate books will make the listening experience better. IT DOES NOT!!! I've wasted money listening to Elliott Gould ruin a Raymond Chandler classic and Samuel L. Jackson fumble a book written by a black author about black people in Harlem. The only A-List actor who has ever really impressed me as a narrator is Don Cheadle. Everyone else should just stay in Malibu or Manhattan or wherever their movie money allows them to live and leave audiobooks to the professional narrators. Kim Basinger reads this already boring story as if she reading a bedtime story to a 2 year-old. I fell asleep about 30 minutes in and I suffer from chronic insomnia! On top of that, I bought the book because it's supposed to be about Louisiana Créoles. Yet, Basinger can't speak French properly nor does she give the characters any depth because she doesn't know the Louisiana dialect or customs. She can barely get through the ENGLISH parts, stumbling and bumbling through sentences as if English is her second language. I'm glad I only paid about $1.99 for this mess in the Daily Deal. But I still may return it for my $2.00. At least I can buy a beignet on Canal Street with the money! Don't waste your time or your money on this one!

With a different reader, this could be amazing

In the end, I grew accustomed to Kim Basinger's odd way of reading, her funny way of pausing midway through a sentence at an unlikely spot as if she had forgotten what she was in the middle of doing. This book is so lovely, though, that I often wished for a better, more sensitive and more dynamic reader.

Good read

I liked it. I was hoping for a happier ending. I thought Kim Basinger did a great job narrating.

Better to sleep in peace than awake to nightmare?

A question to ponder. The better question is how does one live with joy and gratitude after being awakened to new emotions, feelings and passions after years of commitment, loyalty and love to another? An awakening at some time in life (if even for fleeting moments) is a likelihood. The questions of 'what-if..." and 'why now....' will probably follow. A person's reaction will define his/her character as will his/her course after a weakness is revealed.

Edna Pontellier was a selfish woman from her awakening forward. I detested her, thought she was a blubbering baby much of the time and I found it hard to feel sorry for her because of how immature she acted. Had she been more sympathetic I might have felt more pity for her situation of being stuck with a man she did not love.

Published 43 years after "Madame Bovary" (1856) "Awakening" (1899) is a lesser version but very similar. The Awakening is, of course, set in the US, specifically in south Louisiana. The French names are similar. The affairs are similar, but the later novel is not so much steamy and seems more aimed at the female's point of view in the late 1800s toward sexual repression in a place that was undoubtedly more chauvinistic and backwards than France in the mid-1800s.

I enjoyed the book for a view of life during that period and the raw emotions exposed to the salty air. I know this is frequently used (or always) in feminist studies in academia, so I've always wanted to read this, if for nothing else, to broaden my horizons.

Kim Basinger as narrator did an absolutely impeccable job with the tone, accent and acting the part of Edna Pontellier. I wish she'd do more narrating work on classic novels; she has such a melodic, soft Southern voice.