Great novels don't always make good audiobooks

What did you like best about The Adventures of Augie March? What did you like least?

Saul Bellow's language is superb. Often a phrase or a sentence was so striking that I would stop my listening and replay it. The reader is excellent but the story is so rambling and filled with so many characters that it was hard to keep up interest.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Augie's childhood and early years were really captivating. His numerous love affairs were so self indulgent that it was hard to be interested and the Mexico sequence seemed endless.

What does Tom Parker bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Tom Parker is an excellent reader. He did his best to breath life into the characters. I'm sure even he must have been fed up with Augie towards the end of the book but it never showed.

Was The Adventures of Augie March worth the listening time?

No. I persevered because of the language and the reader but kept looking at how much time was left ....wishing it was shorter!

Any additional comments?

I feel this book would work better being read (at least you could check back more easily on who was who!) It is a remarkable novel but doesn't really work as an audiobook.

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5 people found this helpful

poor production

the story is unexceptional, long winded, not a great American novel. a poor quality recording.

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1 person found this helpful

Fantastic Book…Poor Quality of Recording

This surely will remain one of those books to talk about for decades and decades to come. Humorous. Relevant. Insightful. Awkward. Reflective. Genius.

For me, Tom Parker was the perfect choice as the narrator. Many thanks

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1 person found this helpful

Did Feminism Liberate Men?

There are two aspects to this book that are very stark to the modern reader. The first has to include a tribute to its author Saul Bellow's talent for compelling the reader at all times to think. Every paragraph is punctuated with wonderful insights into the human condition.

The second aspect probably only seems obvious to modern eyes with their qualification of contemporary political and social condescension.

For the awful truth is that Augie is not a likable character despite him having been written in that genre that compels the reader to find him somehow agreeable and beguiling. Ditto his family.

To the modern reader however, his needy and selfish materialism never at any stage leads to feelings of remorse or guilt and one is compelled to ask is this actually how men thought before the actuality of feminism and was this at any stage acceptable to men, so demeaning is it by today's standards.

If it were, then as a man, I owe more to the suffragettes and the 1960's feminism than I could have imagined.

But it is a decent enough book for all that despite a few "as if" moments. (It is truly remarkable how often you can bump into people you know on a continent the size of America, and that includes hidden parts of Mexico). The enjoyable parts are Bellow's lyrical flourishes and they certainly abound here.

Samuel Johnson once said of the Giants Causeway on the north coast of Ireland that it was worth seeing but not worth going to see. On making my final assault onto the upper slopes of The Adventures of Augie March I have to say I felt pretty much the same way.

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9 people found this helpful

The great American novel.

A great novel. It has a majestic use of words, ideas and characters. A book of shear brilliance.

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1 person found this helpful

very rich descriptions

Bellow os aflame with details and sub plots, each small character os thr star of another book.

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Covers some ground!

A huge expanse of a novel. You have no idea where it's heading but still you will want to keep up.

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Pure joy

What an absolutely amazing book. I’ve just finished and want to start again immediately! Every line is pure poetry and yet it’s earthiness feels true and real. A great story bigger than Man, but actually no real story at all.
My only complaint was that the reading was too fast. I feel I missed quite a lot and the language deserves a bit more time. I’ll be searching another reading, or reading it myself next time. Though Tom Parker’s accent was great for it and I will probably always remember Augie March with Parker’s voice now!

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1 person found this helpful

Appalling audio quality

Rerecord this, it is quite hard to listen to at times. A brilliant novel, shabbily recorded.

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1 person found this helpful