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  • La Bête Humaine [The Beast Within] (English Edition)

  • By: Émile Zola
  • Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
  • Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (11 ratings)

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La Bête Humaine [The Beast Within] (English Edition)

By: Émile Zola
Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
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Publisher's summary

Against the backdrop of political and legal corruption in Second Empire France, La Bête Humaine (1890) contrasts the technological advancements of the Machine Age with the primitive and timeless human impulse to possess through killing and to kill through possession. The lives of two railwaymen on the Paris-to-Le-Havre line are fatally entwined by their love for the same woman in this shocking account of brutal violence, greed, revenge, and repression. In the wider cast of Zola’s characters, too, we see just how close to the surface of civilization the beast within us lurks.

Public Domain (P)2021 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd.
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What listeners say about La Bête Humaine [The Beast Within] (English Edition)

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

great writing, powerful story

I forced myself to read this for book club. It's top notch writing and the reader is A+++++. Fabulous. The problem is that I didn't like that everyone on the planet has murder on the mind. I didn't particularly want to be in the mind of a murderer. There's not a single person who is actually ethical. I know unethical people exist, but so do ethical people. Zola was maybe a troubled soul. Great ending which I found satisfying and powerful, given the premise of the story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Murderers and the utterly corrupt

Thus gripping novel abounds with truly awful ppl doing awful things, all against a backdrop of train culture.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Compelling storytelling with bits of Ultraviolence

I've fallen in love with Zola, he transports you to an unfamiliar time and place (19th Century France) that you didn't think would be compelling, but OMG it is!
Tons of violence and sex that does NOT feel gratuitous. Zola was fearless in describing the dark side of human nature, and the horrible appetites for destruction he paints, alas, are true to life, even in our modern times of 2023.

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