The Eighth Life

De: Nino Haratischvili

Narrado por: Tavia Gilbert

At the start of the 20th century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste....

Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north, following her new husband, Simon, to his posting at the center of the Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg. Stasia’s is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century.

Tumbling down the years, and across vast expanses of longing and loss, generation after generation of this compelling family hears echoes and sees reflections. A ballet dancer never makes it to Paris and a singer pines for Vienna. Great characters and greater relationships come and go and come again; the world shakes, and shakes some more, and the listener rejoices to have found at last one of those glorious old books in which you can live and learn, be lost and found, and make indelible new friends.

©2019 Nino Haratischvili (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

S Very good read

It’s taken me months to get thru this book the story line is very good but too detailed

Amazing book

I loved this book. The narrator she was amazing. The story is incredible. I definitely recommend this book

An amazing tale of love and life

I know this book is very long, and I know it’s events take place mostly in the country of Georgia, on the Black Sea, which may sound foreign to some. Nevertheless, do yourself a favor and read it. It has been a very long time since I heard a voice so bright, a word so honest and an emotion so sincere.
5 generations of the Yoshi family live through the entire last century. So, it is both education and informational and most of all, it pulls the heart’s strings. The book is very well written - I could not put it down!

Amazing novel, ok narration, and mispronounced names and places

An amazing, very engaging “war and peace” type of a novel, written from the perspective of Soviet periphery. Living in Georgia, i loved imagining the story unfold in different corners of this charismatic country. On the other hand, i was shocked and very annoyed that the producers did not bother verifying the pronunciation of so many key names used repeatedly in the text - very disturbing. Giorgi, Cheburashka, Vake,.. all these terms are butchered over and over again in a way that would anger the author i imagine, and very much annoys the aware listener. Still very highly recommended, but if you know Georgia or Georgian language, be prepared!

Great story, good performance

Absolute loved the story and really enjoyed most aspects of the audiobook performance. The dramatic interpretation was spot on for me (despite some inconsistencies in rendering character’s accents), but I really wished the performer/director would have learned how to pronounce the many famous names and foreign loan words that appeared throughout the text. The names—especially those of famous Russian authors and musicians—were really butchered, but this will only bother the listener if they know the correct pronunciation and /or care about how you say Alla Pugachëva, kolkhoz, etc.

The eight life

An unbelievable story , so filled with emotion , history and a love of chocolate, no words can really tell what an extraordinary take this is a definite read , I loved it . Great narration !!

Engaging but a little flat

I was along for the ride but in the last quarter of it I started to lose interest and much of it started to blur together. I don’t think I felt as connected to the narrator as I did to many other characters, so when it came time to hear her story I was a little ambivalent.
The reader did a good job in general, but I was disappointed that she made no effort to pronounce Georgian words or names correctly. This was distracting for me as someone who studied the language, in part because Georgian is very easy to grasp; it wouldn’t have taken much effort to figure out how to pronounce Giorgi, the most popular name in Georgia.
I did enjoy the trip through time and the Georgian perspective, which is so often lumped in with Russia. This poor country has suffered so much, as these characters will attest to, which made for a very depressive read.

A solid 4.5 stars

Long meandering book, sweeping epic, full of tragedy and trauma, yet compelling and human.

Found the narrator did an outstanding job of managing different voices and characters.

wow!!

Makes me wish I knew more about Eastern European history. I realize how American-centric my schooling was. A beautiful story.

Not sure how I feel about this…

Georgia and the Russian Revolution over the course of a century - something I would usually like. And I did like it. Sortof. I stayed attentive throughout most of this long tome, but there was a lot that left me scratching my head. Why the cursed chocolate and the ghosts when nothing else in this novel speaks to a fantasy bent in any other way? Why the letter format until the final chapter? Why was everything written to Brilka, but Brilka was the least-developed character? How did Brilka save Niza exactly? I don’t get it. So much homosexuality packed in for no reason, including disturbing lesbian rape, and then suddenly the lesbian rapist is a key character who I gather we are supposed to sympathize with? I didn’t. As a historical fiction novel, I kinda liked it, but even that was strange because the author didn’t feel comfortable using real names for the historical figures. I’m just lost at the end. I didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it either.