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Arturo's Island

By: Elsa Morante, Ann Goldstein - translator
Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
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Publisher's summary

Once considered the greatest writer of Italy's postwar generation - and admired by authors as varied as John Banville and Rivka Galchen - Elsa Morante is experiencing a literary renaissance, marked not least by Ann Goldstein's translation of Arturo's Island, the novel that brought Morante international fame.

Imbued with a spectral grace, as if told through an enchanted looking glass, the novel follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where - his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion - he roams the countryside and the beaches or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering existence is upended when his father brings home a beautiful 16-year-old bride, Nunziatella.

A novel of longing and thwarted desires, filled with Morante's "brutal directness and familial torment" (James Wood), Arturo's Island reemerges in this splendid translation to take its rightful place in the world literary canon.

©2019 Elsa Morante Estate; translation copyright 2019 by Ann Goldstein (P)2019 HighBridge Company
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What listeners say about Arturo's Island

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If only I could give less than 1 star!

The narrator is a disaster!
The book was highly recommended to me but the struggle to continue listening to the totally robotic narration was infuriating.

I managed to complete it - but... I would have enjoyed it much more if the narration was human!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Among the best books of my life

Amazing book it grabs you tightly and never really leaves you. Not even after the bit ter sweet ending. I’ve read it years ago and loved it like no other book, but listening to it was a wholly different experience which made it magic. A MUST READ book. The book was so mesmerizing I forgot the narrator … so I guess he was pretty good at it … isn’t this, finally, the goal of every narrator ? Giving voice to the book itself and disappear in this task?

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1 person found this helpful

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Awful

Way toooo long. Just could not follow and did not finish this rambling makes no sense depressing story. No redeeming factors.

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What a bad narration

Couldn’t read more than 5 min
Wish you had chosen a woman narrator. Hillary Huber would have been a perfect narrator for this book. Instead you chose a robot?
Very disappointing.

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Difficult Listen

The narrator read almost in a monotone which distracted from the story. Did not finish book as a result

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4 people found this helpful