People of the Book: A Novel
By: Geraldine Brooks / Narrated By: Edwina Wren
Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
Great book with sometimes appalling narration. Jarring narration. Truly tragic narration…
Have I mentioned just how unfortunate the narration is? Wait! Maybe I’ll say it again!
Or maybe not because I think I made my point: Edwina Wren’s accents are over the top. My sister said all she could think about were Boris and Natasha from Bullwinkle as she navigated her way through People of the Book, and that’s about as unfortunate as it gets, is it not? And everybody, EVERYBODY has that same weird kinda Russian, kinda not, accent. We’re talking about ambitious writing that is set over centuries and through many, many cultures, the Sarajevo Haggadah for cripes sake! There should be a MULTITUDE of accents, but there aren’t: It’s all Boris and Natasha.
Despite all that, I guess you kind of get used to it because I still wound up totally getting into the story. It centers around Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert as she’s called in to “conserve” the Haggadah during the siege of Sarajevo. There’s plenty about art, plenty about science, and as she uncovers oddities in the work: a single thin white hair perhaps, or a wine stain, we’re taken to the work’s history and there’s a story to explain just how these things came to be. As in: Who knew people painted with a single cat hair?
Each story is actually quite divine (tho’ there is one where I sooooooo disliked the characters that I actually didn’t care whether the Haggadah survived, I just wanted that particular vignette to end!), and as a lover of history, I can say that I was pleased with it as I learned a lot, thought a lot. This was my mom’s pick for our audiobook club, and need I say that we had PLENTY to discuss? Well, PLENTY to discuss AFTER we trashed the narration…
The overall effect is fascinating, though I must warn you: My poor mom was so put off by the narration that she “cheated” and read the print copy! Seriously! What is Literacy doing in an audiobook club?!? To her credit, she was well and properly ashamed of herself…
I suppose the weakest part of the book was when we got to Hanna’s personal life. I didn’t really care that she and her mother just couldn’t get along; I didn’t really care if somehow she could tear down her emotional walls and let love in. Me? I was interested in the BOOK! When People of the Book gets into the nitty-gritty of different eras in time, all is well and good. When it gets into Hanna’s love life? Ho-hum… >yawn<
Good book, appalling narration, so I guess that means you’re better off with the print copy. Still, at this point in my life, narration has to get worse than Edwina Wren to completely turn me off from an audiobook, for heaven’s sake!
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