True love,

A true love story, how lucky were they, to find each other.
Anything written by Antonia Fraser…. Is worth reading.

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Welcome to Antonia's Appointment Diary

The beginning seemed to be interesting, but quickly everything became the same. Naming famous people they used to know or they used to socialize with..They moved in the fast theatrical and literary circles from the 60s through the 2000s, much of it in England, but some in NYC. It is Antonia's diary, so most of the entries are short and mainly describe their activities over her emotions.
This is too much like an appointment diary with little emotion. She tells what they did, what they ate, and who they saw. Where are the details? Where is the passion? Most of all, where is the story? It is like seeing a grocery list and a guest list and trying to guess at what the dinner party was like.
For such a talented author, this book is such a disappointment

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Wonderful Book

I read this book when it first came out and loved it then. Such an interesting read and wonderful love story

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Interesting and irritating in equal measure

What did you like best about Must You Go?? What did you like least?

Sandra Duncan's narration sounded very much as if Antonia Fraser were reading. Well read and with interesting inflection. Huge insight into a microcosm of the literati over some thirty years. A genuine love story, but despite that, it was occasionally repetitive and tedious. The author came across as condescending more than once. She and Pinter lived in a different world to the rest.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

You can't change someone else's life story. It was honest, and with that honesty was the risk of revelation about the real person. It was enjoyable, but annoying at times.

What about Sandra Duncan and Gareth Armstrong ’s performance did you like?

Sandra Duncan reminded me of Antonia Fraser, so it's as if the author is reading. Was less keen on Gareth Armstrong's voice, but it was infrequent, so not a problem.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

I'd wait until it was shown free on TV.

Any additional comments?

Despite their socialist and humanitarian leanings, I was left with a disappointing sense of wealth and privilege. Anguishing about table settings and who should set to left or right dependent upon title and heritage isn't, for me, a benchmark. But it is ultimately revealing.

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3 people found this helpful

Deeply affectionate portrait of a literary giant

If you could sum up Must You Go? in three words, what would they be?

Moving, engaging, warm-hearted.

Have you listened to any of Sandra Duncan and Gareth Armstrong ’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Duncan's beautifully modulated narrative voice is well suited to the author's written "voice", while Armstrong's resonant male tones and discerning pace convey the simplicity and depth of Pinter's poetry.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Fraser's description of the couple's early times together, as they endured/negotiated the turbulence and pain of the disintegration of their respective marriages, underpins the rest of her story; but it is in speaking of Pinter's illness, and the dignity, creativity and courage with which he filled his final months, that she is at her most powerful, and especially in her telling of his death, all the more moving for its brevity and simplicity.

Any additional comments?

Once again, AUDIBLE wrecks its own product by its crass, insensitive, crashingly intrusive end-announcement. Barely TWO SECONDS after the book's final tender and hesitant words of farewell ("Goodnight sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to they rest"), in comes the Audible staffer's voice to tell you the book has ended. It's gross, shocking, unnecessary, and Audible should be ashamed of itself. Does no-one in the company ever actually LISTEN to the final product? Or do they feel every reader is so stupid and unlikely to have been moved by / engaged in the just-finished book that (s)he won't mind being bellowed at in this way?

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12 people found this helpful