Beautiful Ruins
By: Jess Walter / Narrated By: Edoardo Ballerini
Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
A beautifully emotional journey that kinda rushes at the end
I mean, I get it: the man worked on this book for fifteen years and probably thought that at some point he should finish the book and send it out into the world, but yes, the ending is fairly rushed with lives wrapped up and handed to the listener with a neat little bow tied around it.
To say that Jess Walter is a good writer is a total understatement. His writing is profound and impeccable, his sense of metaphor is ungodly brilliant. He has deep and heavy scenes that could get bogged down in emotion but then a metaphor is tacked onto it that is lovely, lively, and adds much-needed levity that makes the listener smile and tip ones hat to him.
Beautiful Ruins is an audiobook that spans about fifty years, starting with the empathetic Pasquale meeting and sharing an odd bond with the up and coming actress, Dee, who has left film production in Rome, believing she’s about to die. There is chemistry and bonding galore that is no way overwritten or overproduced; it’s a really, really sweet and charming companionship that inspires dreaming and a bit of wry sadness. And in no way does it come off as precious or sickly sentimental.
Add to that, life goes on for Pasquale, Dee, their companions and people who are just sucked into their story, and you have a brilliantly written novel that is engaging and endearing at the same time. I’ve not enjoyed a character so much as I have the goodhearted Pasquale in a long time.
I’d be lying, however, if I said this was Walter’s best book. No, that honor belongs to his collection of short stories, We Live in Water. In that collection, his writing is taut and the emotions are gentle yet hard-hitting at the same time. (Truly, an amazing book.)
Still, Beautiful Ruins with the incomparable Edoardo Ballerini narrating is a really good book. Ballerini delivers the characters well, delivers emotion well, delivers each beautifully written line well. There is humor in his performance, and his ability to set up situations and then build on the emotion and drama therein is a wonder to listen to.
And there are situations and drama galore. There are good intentions, poor choices, messy situations that reflect life in all its beauty, all its sadness. Indeed, the listener comes away feeling that his or her own life is quite simply one big, tragic, and oh so lovely ruin, worth every breath, every heartache, every love lost.
The audiobook comes in at just under 13 hours, and as I mentioned at the beginning, the first 12 are awesome. If you can swallow the complete wrap-up of all characters, big, little, major, minor, and even the question and answer section which Jess Walter takes the helm for to close the audiobook, you’re golden.
Beautiful Ruins is a gracefully written story that Ballerini translates into a gracefully delivered audio production. It was a selection for the audiobook club my mom, sister, and I have, and it was by and large, well-received and appreciated.
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