A Bend in the River
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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V. S. Naipaul
About this listen
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- By Birdshot on 11-16-19
By: Paul Theroux
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What You Have Heard Is True
- A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
- By: Carolyn Forché
- Narrated by: Carolyn Forché
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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What You Have Heard is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.
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Beautiful story
- By Norhilda on 05-09-19
By: Carolyn Forché
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1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
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Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
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This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
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The Hopkins Manuscript
- A Novel
- By: R.C. Sherriff
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton, Lameece Issaq
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
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Edgar Hopkins is a retired math teacher with a strong sense of self-importance, whose greatest pride is winning poultry-breeding contests. When not meticulously caring for his Bantam, Edgar is an active member of the British Lunar Society. Thanks to that affiliation, Edgar becomes one of the first people to learn that the moon is on a collision course with the earth. Members of the society are sworn to secrecy, but eventually the moon begins to loom so large in the sky that the truth can no longer be denied.
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1939 or present?
- By TimePresentTimePast on 01-23-23
By: R.C. Sherriff
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In Pharaoh's Army
- Memories of the Lost War
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
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Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor, and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life a modern classic.
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Boring Waste of Time
- By Ethan on 08-21-22
By: Tobias Wolff
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44 Scotland Street
- By: Alexander McCall Smith
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
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The brilliant Alexander McCall Smith became an international sensation with his New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels. His award-winning wit, made famous through that series, is fully on display in 44 Scotland Street.
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Smith's answer to Maupin
- By Amazon Customer on 10-23-05
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The First Man
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
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In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aesthetic powers and moral vision.
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Great Narration by Jefferson Mays
- By Sean Patrick Stevens on 07-31-21
By: Albert Camus
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Main Street (Annotated): 100th Anniversary Edition
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
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A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.
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What Are Your Assumptions About Yourself & Others
- By Benny Fife on 02-06-20
By: Sinclair Lewis
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
- By: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
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One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
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What in the heck happened?????
- By Melinda on 02-05-14
By: Gabriel García Márquez, and others
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What listeners say about A Bend in the River
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Karen
- 09-26-06
confusing
I was disappointed in this novel. After listening to it for over 10 hrs. the book just ended with no conclusion. Additionally, while the reader was good the book was rather boring.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- R. Loewen
- 01-30-17
terrifying
terrifying. what we know about the venality of humankind laid bare. a a a a
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Overall
- connie
- 10-13-08
immersion in postcolonial Africa
It would take volumes of nonfiction to communicate what Naipaul says in this novel about Africa's struggle to shake off colonialism and neocolonialism with their aftershocks and displacements. Although written in 1977-78, the novel also anticpates the growth of economic globalization and its displacements. There is also a sad but comic portrait of the well-meaning Western intellectual class.
The novel helps the reader to understand how events like the Rwandan Genocide could happen and see its roots in the "White Hyacinth" (one of the central symbols) that crept down river from the west. Since the narrator (wise and experienced as he is) can speak only from his limited persepctive, symbol and metaphor supply the nuances. The novel also reminds us that "Africa" is a diverse continent, not one homogenous place. The novel surpasses its setting as a reflection on the nature of human power and domination, as well as resilience.
While it isn't an action novel, as someone else pointed out, the second half IS a gripping listen and accessible. Don't expect a "pat" ending, though.
This is the first Naipaul novel I've read/listened to, but I can see why his Nobel Prize citation praised him for relating the hidden, forgotten histories in literary form.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Su Flanagan
- 02-07-21
Racist, but...
the writing is so good. His portrayal of Africans is really awful. Nobody should teach this book without dealing with this ugly perspective.
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- William
- 05-30-19
Amazing insight into an unknowable
Amazing insight into a culture unknown and unknowable to us. My attitude toward African people has been greatly enhanced be listening to this novel. This was the well spent.
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Overall
- Charles
- 01-17-05
A curious journey
The readers english accent was perfect and at times difficult. This book required concentration to discern the subleties of both language and culture that are so different from contemporary USA. While it hints of Out of Africa it tells the story of a sensible man in a complex world in a time when the rules of traditional culture no longer applied.
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7 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Jeremy Mumford
- 08-18-23
Fascinating historical document
A fascinating account of Mobutu’s Zaire in the 1970s through the eyes of expatriates: Indian – Tanzanian traders trying to get rich in the booms and busts of post-colonial Kisangani, and a European couple the narrator befriends, the man a some-time advisor to the President, currently in eclipse and semi-exile from the capital.
Naipaul was a good observer. His bitter and pessimistic impressions verge on a racist dismissal of Africa and Africans, as many have observed. But the book is pretty nuanced, and Zairian politics were undeniably horrific.
Nepal‘s writing is beautiful but the book is a bit formless. It has a lot of social/political exposition, which is very interesting, but loses the track of the narrative. The violence of the protagonist’s affair with the European woman is weird and gratuitous. The narrator remains a bit of a mystery.
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Performance
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- Jaydee Larson
- 04-24-16
A crash course in postcolonial Africa.
This is a nice novel, which describes the dynamics that most African countries went through in the years around their independence from the previous colonisers.
Naispul brilliantly describes the delicate relationships between the various African ethnic groups and nationalities, those people's interactions with expatriates and among the expatriates themselves. He describes a country (likely to be contemporary DR Congo) in moral, institutional and cultural decay and confusion resulting from the sudden changes that the country has to go through.
It is an honest and realistic portrait of postcolonial Africa written in an rich, sometimes poetic, language that leaves one with the feeling of actually being there in person.
Simon Vance delivers a nice performance that catches very well the spirit and the tone of the book.
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Story
- eric solomon
- 05-28-23
A tale to think about
A fascinating story of Africa told by someone who understands the ways of Africa. A story told with amazing colour, illustrating a vibrancy experienced by anyone who has lived in Africa. The rich and charming fabric of Africa unfortunately gives way to a life which is so predictable despite the efforts of many to preserve the way of life for all . The outcome will always be the same. A thought provoking read .
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- Philharmonic
- 06-29-17
OK, is the Narrator from 1926?
I now believe in time travel based on the Narrator's accent. Great story... Almost unbearable listen due to pretentious narration.
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