Terrible French accent spoiled things

Why not hire someone with at least a working knowledge of French to narrate this book?! Every time the narrator pronounced Alain as Elaine, or Françoise as François (a man’s name), I cringed. Just two of many examples.
This poor casting decision really detracted from a complex and lyrical, if perhaps slightly overlong, novel.

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Accent

American pronunciation of French words was irritating to my English ears. Otherwise a good story.

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struggled to finish

heard of this this from a book club and was initial very engaged but felt the middle of the book lost it's way and I gave up almost... decided to listen to them last few chapters which was sufficient to get some closure... tis done...

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I loved the gentleness of the story despite its great sadness.

I would have preferred someone more at home with French pronunciation. Even better would have been a French so speaking narrator.

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…books are bricks of experience- no regrets

A cemetery is an original setting to a story of interactions, love, multiple relationships and intriguing characters. Certainly the book is an opportunity to listen to a modern French novel in translation, describing an environment on an unfamiliar cultural and behavioural canvas, which I enjoyed.
One can view this all kindly and look at the emergence from tragedy and redemption for Violette; she certainly deserves it, or be more ruthless and describe a convoluted and contrived novel attempting to link up too many personalities and wonder that selfish and negative behavior is the origin of all misfortune.
Chapters are preceded by quotes from poetry, mostly of French origin, but I recognised some English; none however were referenced, and I would have preferred to have known.
The narrator is American, who’s pronunciation was sadly inconsistent with hard “t’s” for example, on basics like beret and Peugeot, and probably much more that I didn’t notice and although female voices were adequate, the men were overly alike and not fluent.

This was a random choice with no recommendation other than “new and available”. It wasn’t a best read but books are bricks of experience - no regrets.

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Pleasant enough story but dragged on.

Story started off well but didn't finish it as not captivated enough and at least an hour too long.

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Very unusual compelling story

Liked the story but narrator poor pronunciation of French and even some English words which spoilt the listening experience for me.

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Beautiful story, heartbreaking and heart lifting.

This is a beautiful story of love, loss, life and all the complications and intricacies within them. Loved the characters and the setting. The narration was pretty good but some of the mispronunciations were quite distracting.

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Good story but TERRIBLE TERRIBLE french accent

This is a really interesting story and very unusual. But please - why, when there are so many french names to speak, choose a narrator who has zero grasp of french pronunciation. If the story had t been so good I would have given up pretty early on. Would advise reading this book not listening to it.

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4 people found this helpful

Overall good but with very poor quality narration due to pronunciation by American of French

Really irritating narrator whose ignorant pronunciation of French really spoiled this story.. American accent kills the beauty of all things French. Then as the story went on and on (Too long)too many infidelities and affairs took away from the otherwise interesting and clever composition particularly in the settings ,locations and quirky jobs around which the main characters reside and work.

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