A Sentimental Journey Audiobook By Laurence Sterne cover art

A Sentimental Journey

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Sentimental Journey

By: Laurence Sterne
Narrated by: Anton Lesser
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $13.99

Buy for $13.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Published just months before his death in 1768, A Sentimental Journey is Sterne's lightly fictionalised account of his own European travels. And being Sterne, it is more about digressions, misunderstandings, and risqué jokes than the places he visits. Narrated by the (apparently) innocent Parson Yorick, who appeared in Sterne's other masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, it is full of anecdote and incident, and is far more about the people than the landscapes on the road from Calais. Despite the title, any sentimentality is offset by the elegance of the writing, the engaging companionship of Yorick himself, and the constant, playful surprises.

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2010 Naxos Audiobooks
Classics European Fiction Literary Fiction Literary History & Criticism Travel Writing & Commentary Funny
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Editorial reviews

Laurence Sterne is perhaps best remembered for his daunting tome Tristam Shandy, however in the years leading up to his death he traveled extensively through France and Italy producing the well-loved novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Award-winning actor Anton Lesser lends his voice to the production of this classic fictionalized account of Sterne’s travels, and with his enthusiastic nearly falsetto delivery audiences will feel all the playfulness and adventure of the original text at full strength. Listeners are sure to enjoy this production of one of the early great travel books.

What listeners say about A Sentimental Journey

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    23
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    27
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    18
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Glad I Listened, But…

…I know the significance of this novel to the history of literature and writers.

But it wasn’t much to the journey.

I did my best to hold up a reasonable level of interest. But I can’t say I altogether succeeded.

The plot may have been a precursor to modern ways of writing and exemplary technically. But, perhaps because I have not have not studied Sterne academically, I found little of value in the reading.

I am a reasonably bright person who has read a great deal. And I feel solid in pointing out as well that character development was stunted as well.

I can’t be too positive except to say if you have interest to go ahead as a student of literature, do so. But, as I reader and lover of all kinds of fiction, I can’t give it high marks.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Read for Coursework - Fantastic Audiobook

Narrator made the story so much more enjoyable. Glad I checked Audible. -graduate student

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Another Hoot...

...from the peculiar mind of Laurence Sterne and brilliantly realized, again, by a voice genius who makes Sterne accessible to the bewildered masses: Anton Lesser, better known to many as GoT's Qyburn, the unethical former maester, notable for his illegal experimentations involving humans both live and dead. Sterne is a hard read, even in this short work, a result of his virtual stream-of-consciousness into layers and layers of digressions and caesuras within digressions and caesuras that sometimes reach an end or conclusion...or not, drifting away the the vault of incomplete digressions.

I recommend having the book in hand as you listen to the narration, which Lesser seems to have carefully thought out, for the sake of clarity and appropriate emphasis, parsing Sterne's diction to a "t." It seems to me impossible that listeners might continue to track the ceaseless Sternian digressions competently while Sterne drags his narrative down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, emerging or not, somewhat later.

Laurence Sterne anticipates modernists Joyce, Beckett, Flann O'Brien...Irishmen all...and is himself a modern absurdist - a point made clear in a useful Penguin Classics introduction by A. Alvarez - in Georgian raiment as well as a trail marker in English-language literature. With Lesser as helper, confusion yields to illumination and allows readers to savor this quirky semi-autobiogrqphical novel.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!