The Possessed

By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Narrated by: Patrick Cullen

Loosely based on sensational press reports of a Moscow student’s murder by fellow revolutionists, The Possessed depicts the destructive chaos caused by outside agitators who move into a provincial town.

The enigmatic Stavrogin dominates the novel. His magnetic personality influences his tutor, the liberal intellectual poseur Stepan Verhovensky, and the teacher’s revolutionary son Pyotr, as well as other radicals.

Stavrogin is portrayed as a man of strength without direction, capable of goodness and nobility. When Stavrogin loses his faith in God, however, he is seized by brutal desires he does not fully understand.

Widely considered the greatest political novel ever written, The Possessed showcases Dostoevsky’s brilliant characterization, amazing insight into the human heart, and crushing criticism of the desire to manipulate the thought and behavior of others.

Public Domain (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

The Narrator ruined this great work.

The Possessed is one of my all-time favorite works. Dostoevsky is my favorite author. I am greatly disappointed with Cullen's narrative. Is he incapable of achieving more than one voice? his characters dialogue is indistinguishable from one another. this is extremely frustrating. furthermore, his syntax is absurd. I truly do not believe he really understands much of what he's reading. the emphasis he puts into the ends of some of his sentences is ridiculous and impertinent. It changes the meaning into something resembling senselessness. finally, if you want to give a Russian or foreign work the proper tone and levity a foreign accent generally works best. They should have hired a Brit to narrate this. Thanks for ruining a masterpiece. most of the audio books I have listened to have been narrated wonderfully. I am practically furious that this precious work was so mishandled. I feel bad for so criticizing this narrator's professional work, but i just couldn't keep it to myself any longer. I'm sure he does a fine job with domestic novels.

Better wait for Simon Vance to read this one...

I'm a huge Dostoyevsky fan, but I found it very hard to enjoy (or, indeed, follow) this audiobook. Mr. Cullen has a very good voice, but, with one or two exceptions, all his characters sound exactly the same. What's even worse, he gives no cues for the change in speaker, which makes many of dialogues in the book almost unintelligible. In a printed book we have paragraph breaks; in this audiobook there is nothing. Another minor (but annoying) feature of his narration is that he occasionally lowers his voice to a whisper. For anyone who listens to the audiobook while commuting, or in any other environment that is not completely quiet, this can be quite frustrating.

In other words: unless for some reason you have to have this audiobook now, I would suggest waiting for a different version.

Defense of this audio

This audio is from the translation by Constance Garnett. The Barnes and Noble Classic edition also translates the French and provides good endnotes.

I disagree with the above comments in that I believe this narrator does give a good voice to a Russian novel. I don't like Russian characters with British accents. He is especially good with drunken, abusive characters, and with the passages in French.

I do agree with the above comments in that this narrator's characterizations are very limited. I could discern only 5 different characters and that's if you listen closely. He fails to render a good voice for the female characters.

Great book, Very good narration, but little sloopy

Where does The Possessed rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The book is amazing. Complex, realistic and requires much reflection. I read it while listening. Patrick Cullen improves during his narration. The narration is largely good, and with some amendments. This narration includes the censored last chapter. If you expect too much drama from the narration, you may prefer another. But I feel very satisfied with it, provided it's a long book and the narrator made it very well to keep me reading this. This is a complex task to narrated this novel and Patrick Cullen made a good job. The version is the unabridged translation from Constace Garnett, a lovely one, especially for those interested in a more original version of Dostoevsky's works.

Why do I like this book so much?

When they say Dostoevsky is like "voices in your head", none exemplifies this idea better than this book. Simply cannot put my finger on what makes the dialogue, and there is much here, so haunting.

I like to refer to artists like Dostoevsky as "raw geniuses", whose ideas are so powerful they seem to not care about keeping the reader interested. How could someone of this depth be hooked on the shallow sport of gambling? Not enough turmoil in his life already? Maybe I'll find out when I read/hear The Gambler.