Ridiculous overdramatic narrator with a tedious delivery

This is a heavy work at best. Lots of 18th century counter revolutionary battle details. Not for the feint hearted. Unfortunately the narrator has made it even tougher to get into with a deliberately inaccessible overdramatic, almost ludicrously camp delivery which doesn't shift out of a continued dreary monotonous pitch.

if you want to read Hugo, find a better narrator.
There's a reason why Frederick Davidson reads are always in the free catalogue.

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Five stars for Hugo's work 3 for the recording!

Ok I'll be quick and simple this is a great story

Victor Hugo wrote this book to show how people act in battle (the novel is set in the year 1793 in the French Revolution). And he shows how familys faught against each other in the fight e.g. the Villian in this novel is an uncle and the Hero is a nephew of that uncle and they are on different sides. Fighting for different reason's so if you like 'Notre dame de Paris' and 'Les Mis?rables' his other two great novels you'll like this.

Now for the down side the recording it's self....

It says it's 'unabridged' but it's not it keeps skiping chapters like in one book (the story is split into differnt books and chapters) it gose from chapter 1 to 3 and skips two and in the same book gose from chapter 4 to 6 skiping 5.

This is either a mistake with 'Blackstone audiobooks' which is the company which released this recording or Audible it's self.

And I might add that when I bought 'Notre dame de Paris' it had the same problem it even skiped a complete book so I had to get another rendition of 'Notre dame de Paris' to read the full thing and now there is no other copy of Ninety-Three' so I can't get the full book just warning you.

But beside that it is a very, very good book the characters are wonderful and moving but it would help if you knew some history of the year 1793 in France and the whole revolt sense Hugo acts like his readers already know the historical fact's he put's down.

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7 people found this helpful

An excellent insight into the complicated history of France

This is the second Victor Hugo novel I have listened to, narrated by Frederick Davidson. His style does take a little time to get used to, but patience will be rewarded.
Hugo’s writing combines an involving story interspersed with short essays explaining the details of life and culture of the times.
An excellent book and very well read by a man who narrated about 700 books in his lifetime.

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Great historical story

This is a great story in one turbulent year, 1793, of the French Revolution taken from both a Royalist and the Revolutionary point of view. I really enjoyed it from a historical and a fictional perspective. I liked the way Victor Hugo includes different levels of society at the time from peasant to foot soldier, politician to general. The Audible narrator, Frederick Davidson, has an unusual style - a sort of aristocratic Georgian way of speaking. It took a while to get used to but he is really good at acting all the different characters and after a while drew me in. There are some long bits of author pontification, like many novelists of the period, but it all adds to the overall flavour of the time and I was interested in seeing the long view of the French Revolution from a French 19th century view point. I completely loved Les Miserable on Audible and now I'm starting The Hunchback... Victor Hugo rocks!

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1 person found this helpful

Not suitable as an audiobook

Victor Hugo's style of diversionary essays within his novels, and his interminable lists, can be challenging in audio form, because you can't easily detect the novel's form the way it's possible to do in the written text. The same can be said of Les Miserables to an extent, but there the story is much more engaging and forms a more unified strucrure. The narrators haughty and disenganging tone isn't appealing here. Better to read the book instead, or listen to a different Hugo novel.

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reading a shopping list

This could have been a good book, but I did not download this title as the excerpt was so dreadful. The narrator reads the novel as if reading a shopping list. I will read the book myself!

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8 people found this helpful