Wonderful book narrated by the superb Robert Hardy

Over the years I have read or listened several times. This is a timeless book loosely based on the life of Gauguin. The construction and language makes it a book you can go back to many times and still discover something new in its pages. Although I have enjoyed it very much in print, this audio version is the one I return to because Robert Hardy’s narration is so compelling and brilliant, it brings another dimension altogether. Don’t miss out on this.

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1 person found this helpful

Beautiful prose matched by the voice

Robert Hardy could read a google terms and conditions contract and make the prose sing. I'd recommend anything at all that ge read but this is a masterpiece. I was gripped from start to finish. Incredible book made even better by this wonderful performance.

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1 person found this helpful

Superb performance by Robert Hardy

Good story - must be abridged because it ended abruptly in some chapters.
Interesting tale - based on Gaugin's life.

The narrator - Robert Hardy - is SUPERB and must be commended for his outstanding performance! He carries the story all the way through and his diction is wonderful - his knowledge of the writing is obvious because he did not hesitate at all. He left enough time between chapters, too [some narrators rush through].

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Great

I read this book years ago as a teenager and admired Maugham's writing. This audio version by Robert Hardy brought it vividly alive and I still have his wonderful voice ringing in my head. The descriptions of Tahiti are wonderfully phrased and I am now gripped with a desire to visit the island to see the landscape, the flowers, fruits and people I have long admired in Gauguin's pictures.

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Enchanting

Found this gem read by Robert Hardy.

I have fond memories of listening to him narrating Sherlock as a child and was thrilled to find some of them on Audible.

Well crafted characters that you want to meet. Beautifully written. Sit back and enjoy losing yourself in the narrative, taken along by Hardy’s superb narration.

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1 person found this helpful

Compelling story, well read

I agree with the previous reviews, odd though that may seem, as they appear contradictory.

Yes, Robert Hardy reads the story very well. His voice is very suitable.

Yes, the subject of the story is in many ways distressing. It is based loosely on the life of Van Gough. Strickland abandons his wife and children to be a painter. He has no feeling for any other person but is driven by his single minded pursuit of his art. Bad things happen to people he is involved with ( I won't spoil the story for those who don't know it). Eventually he dies in unfortunate circumstances.

Maugham is as always cynical or perhaps realistic about human motivation. However, in the case of Strickland he is perhaps less judgmental. The book raises the question of the value of art; can it be a higher good than mere happiness? Are Strickland's motives actually purer than those people who simply want a comfortable domestic life?

At the same time the narrative is compelling.

I recommend this audiobook.

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6 people found this helpful

Great story - Excellent narrator

Much of the enjoyment of an audio book lies in the narrator; Hardy Robert was excellent. Each character was brought to life and the ?cast? was easily distinguished from one another by his varied rendition of their voices, which seemed to fit perfectly with my mental image of them.

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8 people found this helpful

Vivid and intriguing

A fascinating glimpse of the life and death of a maverick, genius painter based on Gaugin

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“I shut my eyes in order to see.” Gauguin

The name of the book is a reference to a line in Of Human Bondage "so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet."

It is an excellent book that is entertaining, literate and beautiful.

Character Charles Strickland is inspired by Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) but in reality all the characters in this book are ciphers of humanity's, archetypes, exaggerated in their perspectives and positions; a means to create friction and tension in what is an exploration of art, divinity, and individual social responsibility, to the family, to a culture, and to oneself.
This is not a large book but it achieves a great deal within a few pages and for the period when it was written. Somerset Maugham questions the value of art and the markets that promote it, family and duty, against the fulfilment of one's desires or calling in life, he even questions the cultural values of Europe against a simpler life in the islands, living like a native and dying like a primitive and primordial inhabitant of eden. He discusses the fulfilment of doing and working in something you love just for the love of doing it.
The two main characters are pig headed and determine, the narrator can be bitchy and judgemental, and Strickland is single minded and unpleasant to all, communicating only sparsely in words and fully in paint. The rest represent different facets and obstacles or duties in life. Some might mistake the determination of following a calling as egoism but for some it is just a form of survival
The writer did visit the islands and interviewed people that new Gauguin but this is not a biography by any means, but a work of fiction a very good work of fiction.


If you would like to know more about the life of Gauguin Wikipedia has a fantastically detailed article and substantial collection of photos and reproductions of the artists painting and sculpture.
Gauguin, is considered to be the founder of primitivism in art.

“No one is good; no one is evil; everyone is both, in the same way and in different ways. …”

“It is so small a thing, the life of a man, and yet there is time to do great things, fragments of the common task.”
Paul Gauguin, Intimate Journals, 1903

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24 people found this helpful

An Extreme Character

Robert hardy reads with great character and expression. The book is a fascinating portrait of a very bizarre character. Psychologically very interesting. The central character, Strickland, is as wayward as the art he produces. I enjoyed the book and the performance.

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