My new favourite thing!

18th century epistolary novel recounting the sexual intrigues and adventures of a pair of scheming French Libertines.

Really liked the way the letters are used to hide and to work parts of the plot instead of simply being a device that gives the characters a first-person voice.

Some interesting and disturbing psychological strategies are used between the main characters to goad each other and to trap and manipulate the hapless victims.

The letters are eloquent and quite amusing in a wicked sort of way, and the story is so fresh for something 233 years old. The audiobook is very well narrated by Gabriel Woolf using P.W.K Stone's very readable translation for Penguin (1961).

This recording is clear, but there are small hitches in the editing: small slips of the tongue have not been edited out, and about a paragraph of narrative is missing from 3:35:00 to 3:35:19 of letter 44 in part 1.

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6 people found this helpful

Lovely classic, very comical

What did you like best about this story?

This book is very well written, and the story is very comical in my opinion. I will say that at times it can be a bit slow (some of the love letters written to madame de Tourvel are boring)

What about Gabriel Woolf’s performance did you like?

His performance is very good, but the audiobook is structured VERY poorly. It is even hard to find the beginning of the book because the preface is not in a separate section.

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3 people found this helpful

an interesting but very old fashioned book

I did enjoy this book but it was somewhat spoilt for me for having seen the excellent movie starring John Malkovich and Glenn Close (the updated version with Sarah Michelle Gellar is pretty good too). The movie managed to retain the complex relationships between the characters, and the moral ambiguity of the story, but it had a much sharper focus and narrative drive. The book, in contrast does not so much dwell on as wallow in the detail and to the modern reader it does drag, particularly in the middle; and it beggars belief somewhat that people wrote such long, articulate and closely argued letters to one another. On the plus side the prose is superb - like eating a large and rich box of chocolates.

The book caused quite a scandal in its day - in the years just before the French revolution ( I think the author had a minor role in this but cant remember the details). Narration is superb and sound quality fine for what must be quite an old recording.

I confess I preferred the movie so in all honesty could not recommend the book unless you are keen on 18th century French literature.

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6 people found this helpful

Well... in finished it..

There was a lot I enjoyed about this. The narration was excellent, especially the sardonic tones of the plotters. I liked the humour and they observations of late C18 France. But I found I got lost too easily... too many characters with similar names, and all either up to no good, or the victims of others. I’m glad I’ve done it... but also glad I got it for a bargain price!

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