
A Very Long Engagement
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Narrated by:
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Maggi-Meg Reed
About this listen
Now a major motion picture from Amelie's director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and featuring Audrey Tautou and Jodie Foster comes a very different love story: A Very Long Engagement based on the acclaimed novel by Sébastien Japrisot
A runaway bestseller in France and winner of the 1991 Prix Interallié, Sébastien Japrisot's novel about World War I was acclaimed as "a latter-day War and Peace" by The New York Times.
Set during and after the First World War, A Very Long Engagement is the tale of a young woman's search for her fiancé who she believes might still be alive despite having officially been reported as "killed in the line of duty." Unable to walk since childhood, fearless Mathilde Donnay is undeterred in her quest as she scours the country for information about five wounded French soldiers who were brutally abandoned by their own troops. A Very Long Engagement is a mystery, a love story, and an extraordinary portrait of life in France before and after the War.
©1991 Editions Noel. Translation Copyright 1993 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc. (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLCCritic reviews
“Riveting...A fierce, elliptical novel that's both a gripping psychological thriller and highly moving meditation on the emotional consequence of war.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A classic mystery...Only the best historical fiction can make the journey into a distant time and return with a believable sense of how things really were. That Japrisot's book has done so is a mark of his great talent.” —Paul Watkins, The Washington Post Book World
“Magical...Part romance, part mystery, part history, part exploration of the dogged pursuit of the improbable, it commands attention from first to last.” —The Boston Globe
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What listeners say about A Very Long Engagement
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Not a Anglo-(or Franco-)phile but
- 11-23-05
Boring!
A dreary story indifferently read and badly translated ? No one in 1918 would have said ?When it comes to tail: go figure!?
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