
Carpentaria
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Narrated by:
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Isaac Drandich
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By:
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Alexis Wright
About this listen
Winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
©2008 Alexis Wright (P)2008 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
A rich and inventive tapestry of interwoven tales set among the aborigines of northwestern Queensland, Australia. Author Alexis Wright experiments with both form and language to create a startlingly original story that's both tragic and comic, using tales that blend the political with the mythological, the local and the universal. Although sometimes challenging, listeners are likely to enjoy the trip, and the novel coheres in startling ways at its center. Performer Isaac Drandich's deep, friendly voice provides an accessible narration that counterbalances some of the more challenging material.
Critic reviews
"A swelling, heaving tsunami of a novel: stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humour, sweetened by spiralling lyricism and swaggering with the confident promise of a tale dominated by risk, roguery and revelation." ( The Australian)
What listeners say about Carpentaria
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Michael Shally-Jensen
- 04-28-23
Phenomenal work!
A fabulous tale, set in the small town of Desperance, on the Gulf of Carpentaria (northwest Queensland), which makes good use of Indigenous people’s perspectives and everyday conversations—in English—as they navigate life and events in and around the white/mixed settlement there. Complicating the situation is an international mining operation that seeks to exploit the region’s resources. The “plot” in Carpentaria is less the story than are the key characters and unpredictable happenings and personal interactions that make it up. The writing, too, I would say, is an intimate part of the story—not in terms of "how the tale got written" (as with some modern stories that dwell on that) but rather how it is BEING TOLD, by Wright. This is a brilliant one-off thing, like James Joyce’s Ulysses, or William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, where the tale can’t be separated from the telling. And, yes, to my mind, this is Nobel-level writing: most every sentence is an artistic expression of the first order! The characters live and breath as individual persons in this world (at least in the particular moment in which they exist), and yet they are buffeted by social and natural forces beyond their control. Nature, too—the sea, the sky, the land, the weather, the bloody spinifex grass—is a major “character” in the work, as are local history and “the dreaming.” Everything comes together and makes brilliant sense. It’s a phenomenal novel by an outstanding writer!
And the reading, by the way, by Isaac Drandic, an experienced theatrical director, is more than up to the task. In fact, the Audible version adds a whole new dimension to the written novel. Drandic expertly moves from character to character, from moment to moment, conveying in perfectly dramatized form the “feeling” of events and dialogue, tapping into the roots of local knowledge, local emotion, and making it all live in the recording as it might not even do on the page (especially for non-Australians). A consummate performance!
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Overall
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- drjkauai
- 08-14-15
Mumbling narrator
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I couldn't continue listening so I am going to buy the book. The story is important and well written but the narrator ruined it for me.
Would you be willing to try another one of Isaac Drandich’s performances?
Never!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Alan M
- 07-25-24
Great performance
Not enough plot for my taste. Once the drowned fisherman shows up, it is too slow.
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Overall
- Robert
- 12-05-08
disappointing
Whimsical with little or no direction...little substance but good narrator who tries to maake sense out of nonsense...couldn't finish it
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4 people found this helpful