Ruth

Like watching a great movie with the picture off.

Reviewed: 07-31-05

I cannot overemphasize the hardcore awesomeness of this book or of this reading. I don't tend to have a lot of patience with epics-on-tape--I get distracted pretty easily--but I don't think I turned off my ipod for more than half an hour at a time during the 30 hours of this story. (Except to sleep. and sometimes not even then.) Simon Prebble's reading is incredibly nuanced and lovely: he handles the impossibly large cast of characters with wonderful aplomb and distinction. His style is perfectly suited to Clarke's intricate, dry prose, and his engagement with the story ensures that it never seems dull or episodic. The book tends to provoke really extreme reactions; its scope is so vast that I'm actually kind of shocked that I didn't lose interest myself. But I found it absolutely thrilling and, well, enchanting: dark and funny by turns, magnificently visual, perfectly characterized, etc etc. A review I read said that this is "the kind of book to be lived in for weeks," and the audiobook is the same. I have to go creepily stalk the rest of Prebble's discography--he's just that good.

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