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Brazzaville Beach

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Brazzaville Beach

By: William Boyd
Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

On Brazzaville Beach, on the edge of Africa, Hope Clearwater ponders the strange circumstances that led her to leave her husband, John, and his mathematical obsessions in England and venture to Africa to help world-renowned scientist Eugene Mallabar with his studies of wild chimps.

But the more Hope studies Mallabar, the more she comes to believe that something isn't right. That behind Mallabar and his obsessive work there lies another more sinister truth: one that might also help explain Hope's reasons for leaving England....

©1990 William Boyd (P)2020 Penguin Audio Genre Fiction Psychological Fiction Suspense Africa

Critic reviews

"A brilliant storyteller...a book which stretches, tantalizes and delights." (Financial Times)

"A most extraordinary parable about mankind. Quite unlike anything else I have read." (Sunday Express)

"Brilliant, daring. A gripping and compulsive story." (Herald)
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Worth a listen, I liked the story but it doesn't touch 'ordinary thunder storms'.

The narrator brings this book to life.

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While mostly engaging, I was not that keen on the story itself, feeling there were too many extraneous details on the chimpanzee fights and mathematical theories. I did enjoy the parallel narratives, which allowed the themes to evolve well, but most of the principal characters were pretty much unlikeable, especially Hope, the protagonist. No doubt this was deliberate, but she comes over as lacking in empathy or insight into other humans, relating better to chimpanzees and even hedgerows. The narrator does not help, as although she has a pleasant and varied voice, she reads as if in a race to get to the end as quickly as possible. As a result, several sentences are cut short or split confusingly and there are several mispronunciations.

Complex story not helped by inconsistent narrator

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I loved this work. Two separate stories, expertly woven together. Absolutely fascinating, irresistible. A must listen!

Wonderful story-telling, impeccably read

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I’m not really sure what it is all about. I cant seem to weave all the different stories into one whole.

The performance is good.

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Boyd is a beautiful writer and makes a story that is perhaps not totally brilliant still a joy to listen to. Pippa B-W the narrator is fantastic - she made.me understand how a great narrator makes character transitions somehow invisible and seamless. Great !

Wonderful narration - lovely writing

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Love this author, he's like Ian McEwan with a heart. Very engaging, always a bit educational, with some very sinister undercurrents flowing.

Listened to the whole in one go!

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This was a story of limited appeal. Tensions and dilemmas less than enthralling and characters of stock middle-class sensibilities without deeper or wider resonance. Thematically ok but more playing with ideas than gripping and intriguing. After enjoying audio versions of several Boyd books this was underwhelming. Despite a good voice the reader seemed to be rushing and I found the high level of mispronunciation and faulty emphasis distracting and annoying. This is always a possible scenarion given Boyd’s wide range of diction but it is nonetheless a weakness.

Muted drama

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Unfortunately the narrator’s frequent mispronunciation of words was off-putting and distracting. It was narrated as if she was in some sort of reading race, which not only made it hard to process the information without slowing it down to 0.9 speed, but also caused her to stumble over the phrasing at times. I think the speed-reading also caused her to miss the poignant indicators of mood in certain passages resulting in inappropriate intonation.
A very poor performance that dragged what was a mediocre storyline (for Boyd), down to the level of suffering.

Completely Ruined by Awful Narrator!

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William Boyd tells a captivating story set in 2 timelines - Hope Clearwaters marriage and complications with her husband set in England and in the later timeline she is studying chimpanzees in Africa and having difficulties with the research director . The latter part of Boyds novel takes a major detour into civil war . It’s well written from a writer who is impressive in style, knowledge and who is known as a great story teller. The narration is excellent and makes this a great audiobook . I’ve not given away any spoilers , but don’t be put off by chimpanzee research - it’s actually made quite interesting and is another story in itself. Some readers see it as a book on many levels - not just storytelling ( it’s certainly makes one think about mankind ) Its also apparently very loosely based on Jane Goodall an English primatologist who researched Chimps. Sometimes audiobooks can be let down by their narrator; not this time though.

Great story impressively written and very well narrated .

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This version epitomises a bugbear growing steadily worse in my listening experience: a beautiful trained voice emerging from a grotesquely under-educated mouth. I believe this may be the result of young people aspiring to be actors too early in their education, and finishing up as someone with perfect elocution and a very poor grasp of the English language. The mispronunciations of long words are legion here; at least one per page, and I don't exaggerate. One example of dozens: tributaries pronounced 'try-beautaries' with the accent on the first syllable. Ms Bennet-Warner clearly has never seen the word before and has no idea what it means. 'Secede' pronounced as 'succeed'. Another: Danube pronounced 'de-noob' with the accent on the second. At least someone pointed this out to her and she corrected it in the second half of the book, but to not go back and edit in correct pronunciations I consider cheap and dismissive of the reader. Not acceptable. William Boyd must be furious,

A great and famous book, bizarre narration

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