
The Beast in Man
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $16.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Peter Newcombe Joyce
-
By:
-
Émile Zola
About this listen
Sex, betrayal, murder and corruption form the basis of this sensational novel by one of the leading French authors of the 19th century.
Jacques Lantier is a man with a hereditary homicidal lust. When he sees Roubaud and his wife Severine slit the throat of a wealthy nobleman, it is the catalyst for a string of murders in a convoluted plot full of horror and suspense. Severine starts an affair with Jacques to keep him from informing the authorities, but the couple soon realise that Roubaud has become an obstacle to their happiness.
The malevolent Flore, feeling spurned and betrayed, takes her revenge in catastrophic fashion. If Jacques could cure his illness with just one murder all might be well - but who will be his victim? And can he stop there?
Zola constantly reminds us that underneath the veneer of education and an accepted moral code, the savage beast will always remain. Characteristically, the writer doesn't shy away from the raw sexual element and baser human impulses, confronting us with a truth that, while not always palatable, is always enthralling. It is a brutal study of individuals derailed by primal forces beyond their control which, at the close, leaves us questioning our belief in ourselves as civilised creatures.
Public Domain (P)2009 Assembled StoriesListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Kill
- La Curée
- By: Émile Zola
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against a backdrop of modernisation, extravagant luxury, political intrigue and sexual immorality, Saccard treats close relationships as money-making opportunities and loved ones as mere commodities. As one character puts it: ‘You see, everything is fine, as long as you make money from it.’
-
-
one of Zola's best
- By Nom de Guerre on 05-05-25
By: Émile Zola
-
The Arthur Miller Collection
- By: Arthur Miller
- Narrated by: Emily Bergl, Kevin Chamberlin, Tim DeKay, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection includes ten plays by Arthur Miller. In The Crucible, Stacy Keach and Richard Dreyfuss lead an all-star cast in Miller’s searing play about witchcraft that famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip. Death of a Salesman follows Willy Loman, the iconic traveling salesman whose family is torn apart by his desperate obsession with greatness. In Incident at Vichy, in Nazi-occupied France, nine men are detained under a shadowy pretext and face a terrifying fate.
-
-
Great!!! 9k
- By B Huygens on 10-06-22
By: Arthur Miller
-
The American
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Self-made American millionaire Christopher Newman arrives in Paris brimming with hope and optimism, excited to experience the culture and, hopefully, find the perfect woman to become his wife. After a chance encounter with American expatriate friends, his attention is drawn to Madame de Cintré, 25-year-old widowed daughter of the late Marquis de Bellegarde. Having fallen on hard times, the centuries-old aristocratic family permits Newman's courtship to proceed; however, they later persuade the widow to break off her engagement to the nouveau-riche businessman.
-
-
excellent reading
- By Andorboth on 12-03-22
By: Henry James
-
Formative Early Writings by Karl Marx
- By: Karl Marx
- Narrated by: Derek Le Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Karl Marx is best known for Capital and The Communist Manifesto, his revolutionary thoughts and ideas had developed over decades spent in study, discussion and association with a variety of organisations throughout Europe and the US, intent on challenging the establishment order. These six very different texts show how Marx’s ideas evolved and how increasingly fierce his views became.
-
-
Excellent book with great selection of Marx's work
- By Nicholas on 07-16-19
By: Karl Marx
-
Moralia Volume 1
- 26 Ethical Essays
- By: Plutarch
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though best known now for his collection of lively and vivid Parallel Lives from ancient Greece and Rome, Plutarch (c46 CD-120 CE) was, for centuries, more respected for his Moralia, a remarkable and wide-ranging collection of essays and speeches. No fewer than 78 in total, they range over a broad list of topics in which Plutarch observes, dispenses wisdom, admonishes, entertains and informs: covering social issues and politics, manners and religion - in short, life in general.
-
-
It is plutarch, it is ukemi ...
- By Mohad Cheridi on 07-31-19
By: Plutarch
-
The Spirit of the Laws
- By: Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 23 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment of its publication in 1748, The Spirit of the Laws proved to be a controversial work provoking widespread interest. Within three years it had been translated into various European languages - and was swiftly added to the List of Prohibited Books by the Roman Catholic Church. It is a remarkable book, a potpourri of observations and comments ranging far and wide over the social activities of mankind and it exerted a great influence on political leaders in the following decades.
-
-
Truly Excellent Audiobook!
- By No to Statism on 09-09-19
-
The Kill
- La Curée
- By: Émile Zola
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against a backdrop of modernisation, extravagant luxury, political intrigue and sexual immorality, Saccard treats close relationships as money-making opportunities and loved ones as mere commodities. As one character puts it: ‘You see, everything is fine, as long as you make money from it.’
-
-
one of Zola's best
- By Nom de Guerre on 05-05-25
By: Émile Zola
-
The Arthur Miller Collection
- By: Arthur Miller
- Narrated by: Emily Bergl, Kevin Chamberlin, Tim DeKay, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection includes ten plays by Arthur Miller. In The Crucible, Stacy Keach and Richard Dreyfuss lead an all-star cast in Miller’s searing play about witchcraft that famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip. Death of a Salesman follows Willy Loman, the iconic traveling salesman whose family is torn apart by his desperate obsession with greatness. In Incident at Vichy, in Nazi-occupied France, nine men are detained under a shadowy pretext and face a terrifying fate.
-
-
Great!!! 9k
- By B Huygens on 10-06-22
By: Arthur Miller
-
The American
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Self-made American millionaire Christopher Newman arrives in Paris brimming with hope and optimism, excited to experience the culture and, hopefully, find the perfect woman to become his wife. After a chance encounter with American expatriate friends, his attention is drawn to Madame de Cintré, 25-year-old widowed daughter of the late Marquis de Bellegarde. Having fallen on hard times, the centuries-old aristocratic family permits Newman's courtship to proceed; however, they later persuade the widow to break off her engagement to the nouveau-riche businessman.
-
-
excellent reading
- By Andorboth on 12-03-22
By: Henry James
-
Formative Early Writings by Karl Marx
- By: Karl Marx
- Narrated by: Derek Le Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though Karl Marx is best known for Capital and The Communist Manifesto, his revolutionary thoughts and ideas had developed over decades spent in study, discussion and association with a variety of organisations throughout Europe and the US, intent on challenging the establishment order. These six very different texts show how Marx’s ideas evolved and how increasingly fierce his views became.
-
-
Excellent book with great selection of Marx's work
- By Nicholas on 07-16-19
By: Karl Marx
-
Moralia Volume 1
- 26 Ethical Essays
- By: Plutarch
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though best known now for his collection of lively and vivid Parallel Lives from ancient Greece and Rome, Plutarch (c46 CD-120 CE) was, for centuries, more respected for his Moralia, a remarkable and wide-ranging collection of essays and speeches. No fewer than 78 in total, they range over a broad list of topics in which Plutarch observes, dispenses wisdom, admonishes, entertains and informs: covering social issues and politics, manners and religion - in short, life in general.
-
-
It is plutarch, it is ukemi ...
- By Mohad Cheridi on 07-31-19
By: Plutarch
-
The Spirit of the Laws
- By: Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 23 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment of its publication in 1748, The Spirit of the Laws proved to be a controversial work provoking widespread interest. Within three years it had been translated into various European languages - and was swiftly added to the List of Prohibited Books by the Roman Catholic Church. It is a remarkable book, a potpourri of observations and comments ranging far and wide over the social activities of mankind and it exerted a great influence on political leaders in the following decades.
-
-
Truly Excellent Audiobook!
- By No to Statism on 09-09-19
-
La Rabouilleuse
- The Black Sheep; The Two Brothers
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brothers Philippe and Joseph Bridau are completely unalike: Philippe, braggart and soldier, formerly aide-de-camp to Napoleon, is their mother Agathe's favorite; Joseph, a poor and aspiring artist, is raised in his brother's shadow. When Agathe is reduced to poverty and Philippe accrues gambling debts, the family join forces to focus their attentions on Agathe's brother, Jean-Jacques Rouget, heir to the family fortune. The struggle for his inheritance pits the family against Rouget's beautiful maid Flore ("La Rabouilleuse"), the apple of her master's eye, and her crafty lover.
-
-
Brutal poetic justice
- By Tad Davis on 06-23-20
By: Honoré de Balzac
-
The Heart of a Dog
- By: Mikhail Bulgakov
- Narrated by: Ben Allen
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A well-to-do professor working in Moscow strikes up an unlikely friendship with a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man into the dog. With a wild, but alarmingly human animal on the loose, the professor's previously respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond his imagination. A superb satirical novel, it is also a sharp and pointed criticism of Soviet society, especially the new rich that arose after the Bolshevik revolution.
By: Mikhail Bulgakov
-
A History of Greece
- To the Death of Alexander the Great
- By: John Bagnell Bury
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 40 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the time of his death in 1927, John Bagnell Bury was easily the most honored English historian of his era. Bury, an esteemed Cambridge scholar, wrote what is considered the finest one-volume history of ancient Greece in the English language. His beautifully crafted survey of Greek civilization begins with the description of Bronze Age settlements which appeared on the Greek mainland and on the island of Crete. The story takes us on a strange and exciting series of adventures which result in the development of independent city-states constantly embroiled in division and war.
-
-
The history of Greece love every minute of it
- By Anonymous User on 03-04-25
-
The Sound and the Fury
- By: William Faulkner, Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Gabra Zackman
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
-
-
Hang in
- By W.Denis on 07-11-05
By: William Faulkner, and others
-
The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- By: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - translator
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.
-
-
Lucidity whilst Civilization reverts to barbarism
- By none on 06-25-17
By: Stefan Zweig, and others
-
The Socratic Dialogues
- Alcibiades and Other Attributed Dialogues
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The influence of Plato, his Dialogues and his ‘Academy', cast a long shadow. Around 35 Dialogues, almost all featuring Socrates as the principal figure, are generally ascribed to Plato and form one of the most important threads in Western philosophy. These four Dialogues may fall into the ‘Attributed Texts' category, but they are of sufficient interest to warrant study in our time and when set against the principal canon.
-
-
Great to have Alcibiades, would love more…
- By Steve Deal on 11-29-23
By: Plato
-
The Fall
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.
-
-
Wow Wow Wow
- By Lauren C on 07-14-21
By: Albert Camus
-
The Pole
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Exacting yet unpredictable, pithy yet complex, J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, extravagantly white-haired pianist and interpreter of Chopin who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish Spanish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his concert in Barcelona. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold and his “gleaming dentures,” she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world.
-
-
The discrepancies in details spoil the story
- By romuald on 01-12-24
By: J. M. Coetzee
-
The Maxims
- By: Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Constantine FitzGibbon - translator
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This recording presents a scholarly but accessible 20th century translation by Constantine FitzGibbon, and opens with an introduction to the life and works of La Rochefoucauld, as well as his own description of himself. It closes with a brief but interesting bibliography, in which FitzGibbon brings clarity to the various editions. It is presented in a very listenable manner by David Rintoul, who gives each maxim the weight and character it deserves.
-
-
Damning Wisdom
- By O. on 01-16-24
By: Duc de La Rochefoucauld, and others
-
The Shooting Party
- By: Anton Chekhov
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Moscow an unknown author approaches a publisher (the narrator), asking him to read and publish his manuscript. The narrator agrees to read it before the author returns three months later. At the heart of the story in the manuscript is a love triangle and themes of corruption, concealed love, and fatal jealousy. When one of the central characters is discovered dead, the narrative becomes a murder-mystery as the search for the culprit begins.
-
-
What intriguing skill at 24
- By Kathryn on 02-06-24
By: Anton Chekhov
-
Eugenie Grandet
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Peter Newcombe Joyce
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the beginning of the story the heroine lives an unfulfilled life in rural France, her nature crushed by a domineering and miserly father. Gallant cousin Charles arrives and acts as a catalyst on Eugénie's personality and emotions. Will her love survive the strong self-opinion of the young man and the selfishness of her father or is Eugénie's reward destined to be in heaven?
By: Honoré de Balzac
-
Stalingrad
- By: Vasily Grossman, Robert Chandler - translator, Elizabeth Chandler - translator
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh, Elliot Levey
- Length: 37 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story told in Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad unfolds across the length and breadth of Russia and Europe. At the heart of the novel is the Shaposhnikov family. Even as the Germans advance, the matriarch, Alexandra Vladimirovna, refuses to leave Stalingrad. Far from the front, her eldest daughter, Ludmila, is unhappily married to the Jewish physicist Viktor Shtrum. Viktor's research may be of crucial military importance, but he is distracted by thoughts of his mother in the Ukraine, lost behind German lines.
-
-
war and peace
- By L. Kerr on 12-19-24
By: Vasily Grossman, and others
The Beast in Man (or, as I believe it could be translated, The Human Beast) is about trains: sort of. It's really about the people who make the trains go, but there are times when the great hulking machines themselves seem alive. A wrecked engine is pronounced "dying" and then "dead." An engine being driven for the first time is having its "virginity taken." The engines are given names by their engineers and caressed like lovers.
Zola has mastered his subject and presents it to us with a wealth of circumstantial and convincing detail; and it takes the form of a novel-sized metaphor, with the fate of the characters hurtling down the tracks like a train with no driver. His description of a train derailment in one chapter - with Peter Joyce’s passionate narration - has a visceral impact light years beyond train wrecks in films like The Fugitive and Under Siege 2. Only when the deafening scream of escaping steam recedes can the screams of the survivors be heard. I don’t often shudder when reading a book, but I shuddered repeatedly while listening to this passage.
The mainspring of the plot is a murder - the murder of a railroad official who'd imposed himself on Severine when she was only 15; the murder is carried out by her husband, a decade of more after the fact. It almost takes place off stage. We know Severine and Roubaud are planning it, but the only glimpse we get of it is a fleeting one - the flash of the knife, a throat being cut - seen through a train window by a third character, Jacques. He thinks it was Roubaud. He thinks a hulking mass he saw in a corner of the window was Severine. But he can't be sure; the train was hurtling by at 80 kilometers an hour.
Zola hides the details of the crime until much later in the book, when Severine confesses her involvement to Jacques, who has become her lover. (Zola's treatment of sex - his willingness to talk about passion and naked bodies - is never more than R-rated but is still shocking to anyone who thinks of 19th century fiction as "Victorian.") The confession scene could be simple exposition, but it isn't: it becomes the chief cause of the climactic action. Severine doesn’t know it, but Jacques himself has long harbored homicidal impulses, and her confession has an unexpected effect: it whets his appetite for making his own fantasies a reality.
Throughout the book, Zola’s writing is powerful and naked, almost tortured. There are so many lost souls here, so many broken people. I’ve read that Zola was a determinist and a fatalist. Unlike the curses laid on families by the ancient gods, the families of Zola suffer from genetic defects. Whole families are infected, from generation to generation, by alcoholism, violence, greed, and lust. You might call it the Bad Seed school of destiny. I haven’t found that so obvious in the books I’ve read, where individuals seem to be cursed by no more than our common fate, that of being human beings with bewildering and contradictory motives, in a hostile universe. Despite the intensity of Jacques’ bloodlust, Zola treats him sympathetically: he struggles against the role fate has assigned him, and his downfall is pitiable.
As I said, Joyce gives a passionate reading. He is by far the brightest star among narrators who mostly record for their own company. The one odd thing about this recording is that there are no chapter breaks. Certainly the audiobook is divided into chapters, but the divisions are arbitrary, coming almost anywhere, sometimes (it seems) even in the middle of a paragraph. What I mean is that Zola’s chapter breaks are never announced. The book is read as if it were a single long narrative. It wasn't a problem as far as the pace is concerned, because the narrative races along like that out-of-control train. It was just a problem sometimes knowing where to stop and take a break. I always did that reluctantly.
Furious pace
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator is terrific.
Not for the faint of heart
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This Zola masterpiece rivals Poe in horror!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.