Great story, poor quality

A fantastic story, a great narrator. However, the audio quality is very poor. Although I set the quality to high, the sound was muffled like a 56kbit MP3.

14 Leute fanden das hilfreich

Geschichte vielleicht gut, Hörbuch grottenschlecht

Ob die Story wirklich gut ist, kann ich gar nicht beurteilen, da ich hier das erste Mal nach 1h abgebrochen habe, und selbst die waren mehr von Hoffnung geprägt als von Zuhör-Lust.
Der Klang, die Aufnahme, das Hörerlebnis sind so schlecht, man kann kaum was hören, muss maximal laut machen, trotzdem kaum zu verstehen. Es klingt wie eine schlechte Schellack-Aufnahme.
Schade, denn ich glaube der Roman selber ist gar nicht so schlecht.

2 Leute fanden das hilfreich

Slow, peculiar, fascinating

First up: Yes, the audio quality is bad - which is a shame, because the performance of the reader is quite superb. Should such a thing bother you, don't buy the book. However, you'd miss out on a unique and interesting fantasy novel. The story might start out quiet slow, but have patience, it'll all be worth it.

2 Leute fanden das hilfreich

Mediocre Adult Fantasy for the Patient Reader

This is not a “Harry Potter” for adults, nor is it an “alternative history” novel, it is fantasy of its own kind, but with very brittle charm. Overall Susanna Clarke does not make it easy for you to warm to the novel’s main characters. For me it is still hard to understand, how and why this novel received the prestigious “Nebula Award”.

Some readers might find beauty and entertainment somewhere in this lengthy meandering story, but it is a challenge:
1) It is not really adult fantasy, because the characters appear to be infantile and simple minded and devoid of real emotions
2) There is no real story line, it is a compilation of events with endless deviations and sidelines. Of course the story is spiced with a multitude of great and funny scenes and pictures, but somehow Susanna Clarke does not manage to weave them into a gripping narrative, in general the reader just gets bored and wants to get to the end of it.
3) The prose intends to reflect the language of the 19th century, but after a while, this effort is rather annoying, because it is simply too clumsy. To compare Susanna Clarke’s style to one of the great authors, as some of the reviews do, is just embarrassing.
4) Fantasy gets away with a lot and everything is possible, but there has to be some logic and consistency. In Susanna Clarke’s world the wizards can do the most incredible things, they move cities and rivers, let stone figures talk and revive the dead, but fail to do the most obvious and simplest things.

Without giving away too much, the main story line is as follows:
The great wizard, Mr. Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey, wants to bring magic back to England. He moves to London and takes the young and rich Jonathan Strange as a pupil. Together they entertain England with incredible, but mostly useless deeds of magic and wizardry. While Mr.Norrell prefers the study of books to actual magic, Jonathan Strange wants to help England and its people, he wants to do useful magic. Their initial friendship falters and turns into animosity gradually. This leads to some rather unpleasant consequences for their private lives and the repercussions even affect the country itself.

It is a long book and if you have the time and patience, you might get some entertainment out of it. I admit, I struggled with it.

4 Leute fanden das hilfreich

Too cumbersome for an audio book

Was genau hat Sie an Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell enttäuscht?

It is too complicated to follow it up as an audio book. For example, the list of names is quite long and it is difficult to follow who is who. It includes the reading of footnotes, which I found as a rythm-breaker, an "interruptus" short to speak. I am sure it works better as a normal book.

1 Person fand das hilfreich

Nette Geschichte, aber etwas langatmig

Haben Sie die Zeit genossen, in der Sie dieses Hörbuch gehört haben? Warum oder warum nicht?

Teilweise ja, teilweise aber auch nicht. Generell gefällt mir die Geschichte sehr gut, allerdings ist das Buch teilweise sehr langatmig und verliert sich in Nebenschauplätzen. Das mindert den Spaß am Hörbuch erheblich.

Wie hat Ihnen Simon Prebble als Sprecher gefallen? Warum?

Sehr gut, seine Stimme passt perfekt zum Erzähler.

Just astonishing

The best book I ever read. I cannot recommend this highly enough. Beautiful writing, excellent Characters and a great plot.