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Snow Country

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Snow Country

By: Sebastian Faulks
Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

1914: young Anton Heideck has arrived in Vienna, eager to make his name as a journalist. While working part-time as a private tutor, he encounters Delphine, a woman who mixes startling candour with deep reserve. Entranced by the light of first love, Anton feels himself blessed. Until his country declares war on hers.

1927: for Lena, life with a drunken mother in a small town has been impoverished and cold. She is convinced she can amount to nothing until a young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke, spirits her away to Vienna. But the capital proves unforgiving. Lena leaves her metropolitan dream behind to take a menial job at the snow-bound sanatorium, the Schloss Seeblick.

1933: still struggling to come terms with the loss of so many friends on the Eastern Front, Anton, now an established writer, is commissioned by a magazine to visit the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place of healing, on the banks of a silvery lake, where the depths of human suffering and the chances of redemption are explored, two people will see each other as if for the first time.

Sweeping across Europe as it recovers from one war and hides its face from the coming of another, Snow Country is a landmark novel of exquisite yearnings, dreams of youth and the sanctity of hope. In elegant, shimmering prose, Sebastian Faulks has produced a work of timeless resonance.

©2021 Sebastian Faulks (P)2021 Penguin Audio
Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction War Dream
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What listeners say about Snow Country

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Moments of brilliance, but generally tough going.

My least favourite Audible book to date. Interesting, but very long drawn out .

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

rambling interwar love story

Really enjoyed this role of intertwined Austrian lives from the end of the 19th century to the second world War. Not just a live story but full of philosophy and psychology and struggle, chance and life.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Really enjoyed this moving story. A follow on from human traces, loved reading what the characters had become.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A good listen

Not Sebastian Faukes’ best but still very good. The storyline is a little contrived and there is too much technical psycho babble in the middle section of the book. The editor really should have put his/ her foot down on this rather tedious and turgid deviation from the story. However, the author’s beautifully crafted writing makes up for any flaws and holds the whole thing together wonderfully well. One cares what happens to the main characters and that, I think, is the mark of a good novel.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Too much undigestible research

Sebastian Faulks is undoubtedly a good writer but I have found this failing in other of his novels which drags down the whole work. He's very good at creating historical and geographical cultures, scenarios and settings, and the background to this novel is certainly interesting and fresh. But the whole is ruined for me by undigested chunks of Faulks's research: dialogue is clunky and chunky with it , making the characters unrealistic and, above all, tedious. It's great to have a well researched topic (19th century ideas on treating various mental conditions and illnesses), but the skill as an author is in making it part of your dynamic characters - not crammed into their mouths, The research topic here has become the main character and that made Snow Country a failure for me.
The narration was fine, but couldn't make up for the tedious sections.
Faulks obviously doesn't want to lose all that he has researched, (which is understandable) but he really does need to heavily edit his own work!

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5 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Location

Precision of details gave enormous pleasure and prompted recall of encountering that area.Plot was ok but female characters unconvincing.Philosophy and psychological stuff sadly tedious.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful writing

As always, Sebastian Faulkes writes wonderfully well. A tender love story with much of his philosophy wrapped into it. As I was listening I thought how extraordinary that he has such an understanding of those war years in all his books - as though he lived them. Then there are whole pieces that he writes about reincarnation or collective conciousness. Maybe that's a hint?
Also wonderfully read.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not Quite

There is a desperation from the author to write a moral tale. A tale where love conquers all.
But it is too simple, too obvious.
The strength of the novel is in its minor characters, the vignettes of life offered. The book centre is hollow and too thin to carry the rest.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Terrible... uninteresting characters; story line tried to bring in the war without affect giving little effect.

Narrator was awful as she made anton sound like an old man. Hard to distinguish the females fro each other. Very little description of characters... flat all around

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Intelligent and moving

I have listened twice to this beautiful and moving story - so carefully researched and written with intelligence and compassion. Good choice of narrator too

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