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Madame Bovary
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
Emma Bovary is not content to be the mere dutiful wife of a French country doctor. She yearns for excitement and a sense of romance that pulls at her so strongly she is powerless to resist, even though pursuing her dreams will exact a terrible price. Learn why Gustave Flaubert's compelling heroine has enchanted and puzzled readers for centuries.
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Victor Hugo's tale of injustice, heroism and love follows the fortunes of Jean Valjean, an escaped convict determined to put his criminal past behind him. But his attempts to become a respected member of the community are constantly put under threat: by his own conscience and by the relentless investigations of the dogged Policeman, Javert. It is not simply for himself that Valjean must stay free, however, for he has sworn to protect the baby daughter of Fantine, driven to prostitution by poverty.
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Great Book, Great Translation, 5 Great Narrators
- By Rain Wiegartner on 06-07-20
By: Christine Donougher, and others
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Tulip Fever
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Rula Lenska
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventeenth-century Amsterdam is a city in the grip of tulip mania, basking in the wealth it has generated. Sophia’s husband Cornelis, an ageing merchant, is among those grown rich from this exotic new flower. To celebrate, he commissions a talented young artist to paint him with his young bride. But as the portrait grows, so does the passion between Sophia and the painter; and as ambitions, desires and dreams breed an intricate deception, their reckless gamble propels their lives towards a thrilling and tragic conclusion.
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Very interesting book
- By Kevin Crumpton on 01-31-17
By: Deborah Moggach
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Jack Maggs
- By: Peter Carey
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
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With scars on his back and silver in his pocket, the huge figure of Jack Maggs strides across the rich landscape of 19th century London. As this enigmatic man moves through its streets and houses, his single-minded quest to find his son will engender love, deceit, and vengeance in the lives around him.
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Jack Maggs
- By Kathleen on 04-04-05
By: Peter Carey
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Cover Her Face
- By: P. D. James
- Narrated by: Penelope Dellaporta
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill. Cover Her Face is P. D. James' electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.
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OK but...
- By NoelleJ on 11-14-14
By: P. D. James
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Invitation to a Beheading
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
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Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition.
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Nabokov's Strange Violin Playing in the Void
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
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First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
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Beauty
- A Retelling of the Story of Beauty & the Beast
- By: Robin McKinley
- Narrated by: Charlotte Parry
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
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New York Times best-selling author Robin McKinley has won numerous awards for her writing, including the prestigious Newbery Medal. Though her two sisters are beautiful, Beauty, despite her name, is thin and awkward - but she's also courageous. So when her father makes a terrible promise to a Beast living in an enchanted castle, Beauty knows she must volunteer to be the Beast's prisoner.
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Best version of B&tB I've ever read, seen, heard.
- By ShySusan on 08-11-13
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Magic Flutes
- By: Eva Ibbotson
- Narrated by: Kate Lock
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
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Spring, 1922. Tessa is a beautiful, tiny, dark-eyed princess who’s given up her duties to follow her heart and work backstage at the Viennese opera. She keeps her true identity a well-guarded secret, but when a wealthy, handsome Englishman discovers this bewitching urchin backstage, Tessa’s two lives collide - and in escaping her inheritance, she finds her destiny....
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delightful story spoiled by the reader
- By A Lennox on 01-09-24
By: Eva Ibbotson
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The Master and Margarita
- By: Mikhail Bulgakov
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- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
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The Master and Margarita is one of the most famous and best-selling Russian novels of the 20th century, despite its surreal environment of talking cats, Satan and mysterious happenings. Naxos AudioBooks presents this careful abridgement of a new translation in an imaginative reading by the charismatic Julian Rhind-Tutt. With War and Peace and Crime and Punishment among the Naxos AudioBooks best-sellers, this too promises to be a front title.
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Very vivid and amazing writing style
- By Sina Beni on 05-04-22
By: Mikhail Bulgakov
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The Essex Serpent
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
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When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
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Unbearable Narrator
- By ACB on 06-08-17
By: Sarah Perry
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Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, she is married to the provincial doctor Charles Bovary yet harbors dreams of an elegant and passionate life. Escaping into sentimental novels, she finds her fantasies dashed by the tedium of her days. Motherhood proves to be a burden; religion is only a brief distraction. In an effort to make her life everything she believes it should be, she spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and embarks on two disappointing affairs.
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Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857.
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Irritating French pronunciation
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Madame Bovary: A Signature Performance by Leelee Sobieski
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A Signature Performance: Leelee Sobieski’s Emma is sultry but vulnerable, offering a sympathetic rendering of the heroine and her plight, allowing the listener to draw his own conclusions about Madame Bovary in this cautionary tale of love, passion, and desperation.
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Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick
- By Darwin8u on 07-25-15
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Madame Bovary
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Emma Bovary is the original desperate housewife. Beautiful but bored, Emma is not content to be the mere dutiful wife of a French country doctor. She believes she was meant for something more—a life of luxury, leisure, and, above all, true and passionate love. She spends lavishly on clothes and on her home and throws herself headlong into a reckless series of doomed affairs. Soon heartbroken and crippled by debts, she takes drastic action, with tragic consequences for her husband and daughter.
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Good descriptions throughout story.
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Excellent narrator, beautiful writing
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Fantastic Narrator
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Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent reader of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bring her disappointment, and the consequences are devastating. Flaubert's erotically charged and psychologically acute portrayal of Emma Bovary caused a moral outcry on its publication in 1857.
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Irritating French pronunciation
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A Signature Performance: Leelee Sobieski’s Emma is sultry but vulnerable, offering a sympathetic rendering of the heroine and her plight, allowing the listener to draw his own conclusions about Madame Bovary in this cautionary tale of love, passion, and desperation.
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Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick
- By Darwin8u on 07-25-15
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Good descriptions throughout story.
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La soñadora Emma, una joven de provincias casada con Charles Bovary, quien la ama pero es incapaz de comprenderla y satisfacerla, buscará la realización de sus sueños en otros amores, pasionales y platónicos..., pero ninguno de ellos logrará calmar su desesperada ansiedad y sus románticas inquietudes. La publicación de "Madame Bovary" (1856) provocó el escándalo de la burguesía francesa, esclava de mil prejuicios, y el proceso judicial que siguió contribuyó a un éxito editorial sin precedentes.
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Though he embodies neither wealth nor a lavish persona, Charles Bovary - a somewhat established doctor - takes a chance in marrying the young, vibrant, and ambitious farm girl Emma Rouault. At first, Emma is delighted to be married and away from her father's farm, but her thirst for the rich and ornate lifestyle that she witnesses other people living soon drives her away from her husband and into the arms of various suitors.
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Madame Bovary doesn't disappoint
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Madame Bovary [French Version]
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Issue de la bourgeoisie, Emma Bovary est élevée dans un couvent, où elle fera son "éducation sentimentale" en lisant les œuvres romantiques à la mode. Son mari, Charles Bovary, ne ressemble en rien aux amants mystérieux et délicats de ses lectures : c'est un officier de santé qui exerce dans un village normand où Emma, confrontée à la réalité de la vie quotidienne, va peu à peu perdre pied.
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Excellent book
- By Matt H. on 02-17-17
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Madame Bovary (AmazonClassics Edition)
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- Unabridged
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Emma Bovary, daughter of an uneducated farmer and wife of a dull doctor in northern France, harbors a passion for everything beyond her grasp - sophistication, romance, love, and deliverance from her banal provincial life. Motivated by the primal, idealized, and vain, she seeks adventure. And with each new endeavor, Emma sets for herself an inevitable and inescapable trap.
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Masterpiece
- By Andrei on 09-04-20
By: Gustave Flaubert, and others
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The Red and the Black
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So what would Al Gore choose if he had a book club? Gore named Stendhal's The Red and the Black, a 19th century classic chock full of adultery, betrayal, and moral vacuity, as his favorite book on a recent broadcast of Oprah. It's a bit shocking of a choice, given his wife and running mate's position on clean, wholesome literature. Listen and decide for yourself the merit of this presidential pick.
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Almost perfect
- By Erez on 05-29-08
By: Stendhal
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Vanity Fair
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Set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, this classic gives a satirical picture of a worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp who craves wealth and a position in society. Calculating and determined to succeed, she charms, deceives and manipulates everyone she meets. A novel of early 19th-century English society, it takes its title from the place designated as the centre of human corruption in John Bunyan's 17th-century allegory.
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The Best Narration, One of the Greats
- By James Abraham on 05-18-13
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Madame Bovary [French Version]
- By: Gustave Flaubert
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- Unabridged
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Ce roman n'est pas seulement un drame, c'est un virulent réquisitoire contre la société bourgeoise, contre la médiocrité, contre les conventions, les formules toutes faites et les pensées sur mesure. Si "Madame Bovary" a conservé un immense succès auprès d'un très vaste public, c'est à son caractère profond d'humanité qu'elle le doit. Flaubert a réussi à rendre grand le banal et à donner à ce "cas" un caractère universel.
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Sentimental Education
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Upon arriving home in Normandy, Frederick catches his first glimpse of Marie Arnoux, a mysterious and beautiful woman who leaves a lasting impression on him. Eventually they make each other's acquaintance and Marie becomes a symbol of unattainable perfection for Frederick, whose unrequited infatuation leaves him bouncing from one passion to another, falling in and out of love, money and society.
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In Search of Lost Time
- A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation
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- Original Recording
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Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences.
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Before reading the longest novel every written
- By Fiat Lumen on 01-28-23
By: Marcel Proust
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Madame Bovary
- By: Gustave Flaubert
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Este audiolibro está narrado en castellano. Madame Bovary narra la oscura tragedia de Emma Bovary, mujer infelizmente casada, cuyos sueños choca cruelmente con la realidad. Al hechizo que ejerce la figura de la protagonista hay que añadir la sabia combinación argumental de rebeldía, violencia, melodrama y sexo, «los cuatro grandes ríos», como afirmó en su día Mario Vargas Llosa, que alimentan esta historia inigualable. La publicación de esta obra en 1857 fue recibida con gran polémica y se procesó a Flaubert por atentar contra la moral.
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Madame Bovary (Spanish Edition)
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: FonoLibro
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Abridged
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FonoLibro se enorgullece en presentar el audiolibro en español de una de las obras más controversiales e importantes de la literatura universal, Madame Bovary de Gustavo Flaubert, quién fue llevado a juicio, acusado de inmoralidad, al lanzarse este libro.
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No es para mi
- By Argeonte on 10-09-20
By: Gustave Flaubert
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Madame Bovary (Spanish Edition)
- By: Gustave Flaubert, Mauro Armiño - translator
- Narrated by: Ana Torrent
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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La novela más conocida de Gustave Flaubert y una de las grandes obras de la literatura universal nos acerca a la historia de Emma Rouault, una joven de origen campesino y huérfana de madre que contrae matrimonio con el médico Charles Bovary. El afán por ser la protagonista de una vida romántica presidida por el amor, ambición que su marido no puede satisfacer, será la perdición de la ingenua muchacha, que buscará por todos los medios, con aventuras y con amantes, escapar al tedio, la monotonía y la exasperación que se han apoderado de su vida.
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Muy bueno!!!
- By Santiago Ferrando on 10-01-24
By: Gustave Flaubert, and others
What listeners say about Madame Bovary
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J. S.
- 06-06-21
A marvelous tragedy
I was unprepared for the horrific tragedy that this novel springs upon the reader in the final act. No doubt this book was influential to Tolstoy. Unbelievably passionate prose that practically hums with inspiration and meticulous craft. The rich character of Emma Bovary will live on in my mind forever.
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- Dan
- 07-25-15
Great read. Great story.
The narrator performance truly complimented such a captivating story. Would strongly recommend the purchase of this audio book.
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- MMK
- 12-21-22
Oh the descent.
It is a sad story of foolishness, vice and debauchery. I loved it. Read it and weep.
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Overall
- P. Giorgio
- 09-06-03
Now Here's a Story
Divina Porter gave so much life to Madame Bovary, and of course with no small contribution by its author, the book has a permanent position in my mental book shelf. Hours and hours of listening feeling like I was watching Emma coming apart and taking down the entire cast with her. So well written, you love and pity Emma, feel sorry for Charles and loathe the symbolic money lender for giving her the ability to do it all.
At the end all the tragic, tortured revelations, one glaring irony has a woman coming to collect a debt for Emma's lessons (lessons never taken but used as a cover up to her husband). The 'teacher' approaches poor Emma's suffering husband for a year of "lessons" not taken.
Ah the turn of the screw, the turn of the phrase. On the surface you can read a tale of a "Scarlet O'Hara" in reverse, a woman with everything who longs for a perfect love in a perfect and handsome man. She has all the "things" she needs, but belives she is without love. Her doting husband loves and trusts her, too simple a man to suspect her betrayals. In the end he drinks with one of her lovers proclaiming no bad feelings toward the man. Until the end, his love for her, the very love she sought in every wrong situation, honored her and maintained his belief in her perfection, even as her old love letters fell from his hands. The effect of her never finding what she wants costs him all that his small medical practice provided. (There's no place like home. She had the slippers on all the time!)
The side stories and political, religious and social commentary retell the trysts and errors that Emma commits on her road to ruin. The author uses Emma as the symbol of excess and the outcome as predictions of the future. Emma stands for the cost of immoral actions. Whether God or the taxman, someone gets paid. A compendium of archetypal characters we know and love, dressed in 3D emotion, vivid characterization; speaking words precise and poetic. Pretty near perfect!
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22 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Celia
- 06-29-05
Fantastic!
It has been over 30 years since I read Madame Bovary in High School French class. Back then she seemed inexplicalbly crazed. What an unbelievable difference revisiting the story as a 50+ year old with some world experience behind me. Fascinating story, wonderfully read. I enjoyed this very much.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Zoë
- 11-23-22
Well
Throughout I was never sure if I wanted to keep listening but for whatever reason I did and finished. Emma was depressed and I’m kinda just sad now.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Meg
- 11-07-20
Interesting book
Davina porter did her usual impeccable job.
I stayed with this story (primarily about a narcissistic woman) because I wondered why it was so famous and wanted to find out. I’m sure there’s a good reason but im not sure I would have listened to the whole thing if I had understood how It would unfold.
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- Tiana
- 10-26-20
Female protagonist, realism style
In a world of self help books and empowerment of women it is easy to read this book and see how Emma’s misery is a result of psychological effects of an unfulfilled life. But this book is relatable in the way that we have all felt powerless and unhappy. What really matters is how we deal with these unfulfilled desires and how lucky modern women are to have power to actually do something about their situations.
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- A. Bergman
- 12-09-15
A timeless classic!
I can now see why this was one of Hemingway's favorites. Though the recording may be older, Davina's reading was flawless.
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- Bruce L. Nelson
- 11-30-22
Terrible French Accent
Flaubert is brilliant. But the pronunciation by the reader was unforgivable. She makes “grande rue” sound like “grand roux” and “Bovary” sound like “Boveury.” For such a French language masterpiece, a reader competent in French is necessary!
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1 person found this helpful