The Easy Life
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Narrated by:
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Caroline Hewitt
About this listen
For the first time in English, literary icon Marguerite Duras’s foundational masterpiece about a young woman’s existential breakdown in the deceptively peaceful French countryside.
The Easy Life is the story of Francine Veyrenattes, a twenty-five-year-old woman who already feels like life is passing her by. After witnessing a series of tragedies on her family farm, she alternates between intense grief and staggering boredom as she discovers a curious detachment in herself, an inability to navigate the world as others do. Hoping to be cleansed of whatever ails her, she travels to the coast to visit the sea. But there she finds herself unraveling, uncertain of what is inside her. Lying in the sun with her toes in the sand by day while psychologically dissolving in her hotel room by night, she soon reaches the peak of her inner crisis and must grapple with whether and how she can take hold of her own existence.
An extraordinary examination of a young woman’s estrangement from the world that only Marguerite Duras could have written, The Easy Life is a work of unsettling beauty and insight, and a bold, spellbinding journey into the depths of the human heart.©2022 Marguerite Duras, Emma Ramadan, Olivia Baes, Kate Zambreno (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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In Calabria
- By: Peter S. Beagle
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Claudio Bianchi has lived alone for many years on a hillside in Southern Italy's scenic Calabria. Set in his ways and suspicious of outsiders, Claudio has always resisted change, preferring farming and writing poetry. But one chilly morning, as though from a dream, an impossible visitor appears at the farm. When Claudio comes to her aid, an act of kindness throws his world into chaos. Suddenly he must stave off inquisitive onlookers, invasive media, and even more sinister influences.
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A Wonderful Short Story!
- By Memeke on 02-21-20
By: Peter S. Beagle
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Galilee
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 23 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Barbarossa family’s roots are far more ancient and ethereal, but they are bound to the Gearys by a shared history of murder, insanity, and adultery. When Rachel Geary and Galilee, the seductive prince of the Barbarossa clan, fall in love, they unleash powerful enmities that could destroy both dynasties. Shorter and more conventional than some of Barker’s other work, this novel is especially rich with complex, passionate, three-dimensional characters, lush settings, and elegant language.
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An Audiophile's Dream
- By Joseph on 09-01-11
By: Clive Barker
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The Dream House
- By: Craig Higginson
- Narrated by: Terry Lloyd-Roberts
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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A farmhouse is being reproduced a dozen times, with slight variations, throughout a valley. Three small graves have been dug in the front garden, the middle one lying empty. A woman in a wheelchair sorts through boxes while her husband clambers around the old demolished buildings, wondering where the animals have gone. A young woman – called ‘the barren one’ behind her back – dreams of love, while an ageing headmaster contemplates the end of his life.
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Brilliant Dream House Narration
- By Simon Griffiths on 05-05-21
By: Craig Higginson
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Letter from an Unknown Woman
- By: Stefan Zweig
- Narrated by: Heather Wood, K. Anderson Yancy
- Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Immediately following the death of her young son, distraught and heartbroken, a woman sends a heart-wrenching letter to the only man she has ever loved, chronicling their love affair, opening with, "To you, who have never known me."
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Tough 2 Hear With Background Music & Sound Effects
- By DK on 09-19-15
By: Stefan Zweig
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Jenny
- By: Sigrid Undset
- Narrated by: K. G. Cross
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Jenny is the story of Jenny Winge, a talented Norwegian painter who lives a free and independent life in Rome. Betraying her own ideals, she has an affair, resulting in a child out of wedlock, and decides to raise the child on her own. Undset gives a gripping portrayal of a woman struggling towards fulfillment and independence, who at the same time wrestles with mental problems. It is written with unflinching honesty, which makes her story as compelling today as it was nearly a century ago.
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Undset is an Astute Observer of Human Nature
- By Amazon Customer on 08-05-17
By: Sigrid Undset
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Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Therese Plummer
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character - lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.
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Subtle yet grand
- By jb on 10-12-15
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The Sea, the Sea
- By: Iris Murdoch, Mary Kinzie - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Vance, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
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Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's theatrical set, retires from glittering London to an isolated home by the sea. He plans to write a memoir about his great love affair with Clement Makin, his mentor, both professionally and personally, and amuse himself with Lizzie, an actress he has strung along for many years.
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Murdoch Amazes
- By Sara on 08-30-17
By: Iris Murdoch, and others
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What Storm, What Thunder
- By: Myriam J.A. Chancy
- Narrated by: Ella Turenne
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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The Earth had buckled, and, in that movement, all that was not in its place fell upon the Earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination. At the end of a long sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster
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We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 03-15-22
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Elfland
- Aetherial Tales, Book 1
- By: Freda Warrington
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Elfland is an intimate, sensual novel of people—both human and Aetherial—caught between duty and desire. It is a story of families, and of Rose Fox, a woman born to magic but tormented by her place in her adopted world.Led by Auberon Fox, a group of Aetherials—call them the Fair Folk, if you will—live among us, indistinguishable from humans. Every seven years, on the Night of the Summer Stars, Lawrence Wilder, the Gatekeeper, throws open all gates to the Other World. But this time, something has gone wrong.
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Miscommunication is an obnoxious plot device
- By Robin on 05-26-16
By: Freda Warrington
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The Setting Sun
- New Directions Book
- By: Osamu Dazai
- Narrated by: June Angela
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.
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MORE OSAMU DAZAI TRANSLATIONS PLEASE!!!!!
- By Lucky on 10-19-22
By: Osamu Dazai
What listeners say about The Easy Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jim Kane
- 11-29-23
Wow, I loved it
I listened first to 'The Impudent Ones', and then this. I was surprised to find that both of these books were recently translated into english for the first time and I am pleased that they are available here. These are the first two books by Marguerite Duras whom I've been interested in for a long time.
'The Impudent Ones' is told from a 3rd person perspective and I'd give it 3 stars - really interesting for the insight you get into Dura's craft and the afterword was really nice, but the story itself is a little boring. It wasn't even published at the time.
Now this one, 'The Easy Life' is completely different - it's told from a 1st person perspective and it contains some incredibly lucid passages starting in part 2. The introduction reveals what was happening to Duras at the time - miscarriage, her brother died, France was under Nazi occupation. This one was her first published book, and it's obvious why.
Parts of the book read like a confession of self reckoning. It rings of 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus and because it sparks philosophical analysis. It has an extremely personal feel that the first book didn't have at all.
The narrator is amazing - Caroline Hewitt has a beautiful voice and her performance was outstanding.
This is a quality audiobook, definitely recommended.
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- K Ciotti
- 12-24-23
Only if you love Duras is this audio version bearable
Translation is almost as painful as the performance. The occasional faux French accent is annoying and even sounds mocking.
If you can, read it in the original French. Not Duras’ best work, but still good. Like Edith Wharton transplanted in the Occitane 40 years later.
But do not waste your time on this English audio version. It’s cringe. Very.
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