The Stone Raft

By: Giovanni Pontiero - translator, José Saramago

Narrated by: Eli Carter

What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating the Iberian peninsula? In Saramago's lovely fable, the new island is sent spinning, like a great stone raft, towards the Azores. While the authorities panic and tourists and investors flee, three men, two women, and a dog are drawn together by portents that burden them with a bemusing sense of responsibility. Travelling at first packed into a car, then into a wagon, they take to the road to explore the limits of their now finite land, adrift in a world made new by this radical shift in perspective.

©1995 Jose Saramago (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[T]he political reaction to this geological mishap is marvelously amusing - and greatly enhanced by the author's nimble prose and random metaphysical touches." (Publishers Weekly)

"A lovely questing story in a lineage of… Don Quixote and Kipling's Kim…. [The Stone Raft] may be Saramago's finest work." (Los Angeles Times)

Slow, difficult listen

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No. I loved Blindness, and that's why I tried this book. It was slow and never really gripped me. By the end, I was just trying to get through it.

Which character – as performed by Eli Carter – was your favorite?

Maria Guevara

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

Any additional comments?

The narration was well-done.

poor voice/reading (both in English & Portuguese)

Sorry but I honestly dislike the persons voice reading the book & I’m sure that influenced hugely my opinion on this book experience