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Against the Day
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 53 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
"Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.
"With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred. The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.
"As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.
"Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.
"Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck."
—Thomas Pynchon
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Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere 24 hours before is gone forever. But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world.
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Classic Excellent
- By Daniel Cascaddan on 12-26-23
By: John Wyndham
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Troubles
- By: J. G. Farrell
- Narrated by: Kevin Hely
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland - to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancée he acquired on a rash afternoon's leave three years ago. Despite her many letters, the lady herself proves elusive, and the Major's engagement is short-lived. But he is unable to detach himself from the alluring discomforts of the crumbling hotel. Ensconced in the dim and shabby splendour of the Palm Court, surrounded by gently decaying old ladies and proliferating cats, the Major passes the summer.
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Absolutely delightful read
- By E. Kim on 02-25-20
By: J. G. Farrell
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The Virginian
- A Horseman of the Plains
- By: Owen Wister
- Narrated by: Robert G. Slade
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In this romantic and raw adventure set in the untamed wilderness of Wyoming of 1886, an anonymous college graduate ventures out west where he encounters gun fights, lynching, cattle rustlers, high-stake poker games, Indian attacks, and a brave, honest and imposing cowboy known simply as the Virginian. Presented as the archetypal, ideal hero of the "western" genre (which was novelized for the very first time in this same book), the Virginian, a foreman at Shiloh Ranch, carries a strong sense of justice.
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A Good Book of Perpetual Period Small Talk
- By wbiro on 02-06-21
By: Owen Wister
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The Virginian
- By: Owen Wister
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
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He is the Virginian-the first fully realized cowboy hero in American literature, a near-mythic figure whose idealized image has profoundly influenced our national consciousness. This enduring work of fiction marks the birth of a legend that lives with us still.
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I could have read it better
- By Emily Adams on 09-29-20
By: Owen Wister
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Stand on Zanzibar
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- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 21 hrs and 16 mins
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Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
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perfect audio experience
- By Darryl on 03-24-14
By: John Brunner, and others
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The Ground Beneath Her Feet
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 27 hrs and 18 mins
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Salman Rushdie is widely considered one of a handful of truly great living writers. The internationally acclaimed, Booker Prize-winning author's storytelling shines in this epic love story, a modern retelling of the myth of Orpheus.
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Okay, Salmon, We get that you're a genious already
- By Julie A Quinn on 04-23-09
By: Salman Rushdie
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Book of Secrets
- By: Chris Roberson
- Narrated by: Peter Brooke
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
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It will take more than angels and demons to stop him. Reporter Spencer Finch is embroiled in the hunt for a missing book, encountering along the way cat burglars and mobsters, hackers and mysterious monks. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of the legacy left to him by his late grandfather, a chest of what appear to be pulp magazines from the golden age of fantasy fiction.
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Rating < 0
- By Sandra on 04-04-16
By: Chris Roberson
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The Chronoliths
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Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past-and soon to be haunted by the future. In early 21st-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter.
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A haunting, beautiful work...
- By M. Stephenson on 11-20-09
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
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Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
By: Salman Rushdie
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Night Soldiers
- By: Alan Furst
- Narrated by: George Guidall
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New York Times bestselling author Alan Furst is widely recognized as master of the historical spy novel. Furst’s works are vivid evocations of long-forgotten heroes and feature plots that unfold to the inexorable cadence of history. Night Soldiers is a simultaneously thrilling and illuminating tale of espionage set in 1934.
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Best Alan Furst novel!
- By Placeholder on 04-27-11
By: Alan Furst
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Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
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Overall
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The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
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Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
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What listeners say about Against the Day
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rebecca Lindroos
- 01-28-07
brilliant!
Against the Day is Thomas Pynchon's most recent and one of his most accessible and entertaining works. (Mason & Dixon and The Crying of Lot 49 are better books, imo, but this one is certainly a worthy addition to Pynchon's formidable oeuvre.) Dick Hill's reading makes it even better.
Taking place between 1893 and 1914 in Chicago at the Columbian Exposition and going from there to the globe, inside and out, the story involves a group of very fictional hot-air balloonists, western mines unionists and anarchists (terrorists?) and their families, tycoons and their goons, scientists, mathematicians and a whole menagerie of assorted characters some historical, some not.
The plot involves the children of slain anarchist Traverse Webb as they basically try to 1. avenge his death and 2. escape the clutches of the evil tycoon Scarsdale Vibe. Meanwhile, the Chums of Chance glide around observing from their balloon above. But that's a very, very simplified version of the intricate convolutions the plot of this encyclopedic novel takes.
The themes are the closing of the frontier and the onset of modern life, including the boom of technology and capitalist greed. Meanwhile, the common man is doomed to live under the oppression of totalitarian regimes willing to use militaristic force to ensure domination.
Different styles are used for different plots of the book varying from Dime Novel to American Western to erotica and spy novel. This is quite effective in maintaining interest throughout such a long book.
The narrator Dick Hill gives a bit of very appropriate energy and drama to the reading and although it took a few minutes to get used to the voice (as usual for me), it's obvious Hill knows and loves the material and his interpretation is "cracker-jack!" Good show!
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58 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Drew
- 05-25-07
Plot, schmlot
Plot in a novel is overrated. If you want plot, read Dan Brown instead- though that's all you'll get.
This is a work of genius- and not only because of the author's penchant for self-promotion and intentional obscurity and obfuscation.
This is truly a piece of art painted with intentionally hammy techniques and wonderful surreal and non-linear streams of consciousness. All of these things dance around the sensation of the characters, the essence of spirit that the author wishes to share with those who can sense it.
I laughed when a reviewer preferred to go back to Ulysses instead. Well, that's a mighty difficult yardstick for each and every novel to stand comparison. It's like comparing every portrait to the Mona Lisa.
Full disclosure: this was my first reading of a complete Pynchon novel. I'm not a literary snob and don't feel the need to crow about how much better his other works are. Some folks more learned and well-read than I am have said Gravity's Rainbow is far superior. Great- more to explore!
For me, this is one of the most wonderful author "discoveries" since I first read Kafka.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Robert E. Orlando
- 07-26-14
Love Pynchon, but...
I advise anyone who really cares to read this book on the printed page where it won't be polluted by Dick Hill's intrusive and cloying narration. I tried to listen, but a giving up because I can't bear another minute of Hill.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- PerpetualGeorge
- 02-27-10
Pure Genius
One of Pynchon's best with a great read from Dick Hill. Loved it. Just a brilliant work of fiction.
To address the negative reviews: if you tend to think of Nicholas Sparks or Dan Brown as great literature you may find this book a little confusing and off-putting. You'd be better off downloading the latest Sue Grafton or something of that ilk instead.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-15-23
Against the Day not bad
It’s taken me two years to finish this novel. I’m a Pynchon fan, but the usual tropes and jokes got buried under layers and layers of plotting. So finishing the novel seems like van occasion for breaking out the champagne as one does at the end of a marathon. But parts of Against the Day are exquisitely funny, touching, brilliant. Will I r as it again? Probably not. Can I recommend it? Absolutely!
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- M. Davis
- 02-17-16
Good Reference to write a steampunk story but....
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
NO --- no recommendation.
Clearly the author was writing a history report on the 1800's and decided to craft it into a book to salvage the A minus on the final report.
What could Thomas Pynchon have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Apply "endings".
One of the big diffs between Stories and Poems: poems, like songs, rarely have Endings.
Just Describe the conflict, speculate about how I feel, and repeat chorus.
This book introduces characters and some good dialog, then Boom next setting, next characters, then boom boom boom.
There is a grand total of ONE plot in a 52 hour audiobook.
For a new story just tack on an ending and you've got a decent story.....hey maybe I should go to my writing desk of dollars......excuse me
Any additional comments?
Mike Perschon, the Steampunk Scholar, recommended this book in multiple top 10's.
From a History-Book-Come-Alive, I guess, it saved Mike from doing the research himself.
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Overall
- Andy
- 02-17-10
Pynchon warns us, so pay attention
An odd story. You have to meet the book half way. Pynchon said his characters would stop what they are doing to sing a stupid song, and they do. In the end the book is fun, but for me it's Dick Hill's narration that makes it accessible. ALERT: the book is not available in the Enhanced format (at least as I write in Feb '10).
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Mitchell
- 07-06-20
This might be my favorite Pynchon
I’ve listened to them all, and this is in the vein of GR but a little more fun, a little more wild, has a great diversity of stories to follow
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- C. Daniels
- 04-20-20
Another Gravity’s Rainbow
The second most-satisfying Pynchon novel to which I’ve had the pleasure of listening. I’m so bummed it’s over.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- jacob rogers
- 04-16-23
why
The book was fine at best and the narration was aggressively annoying. But for some reason I listened to the whole thing.
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