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Super-Infinite
- The Transformations of John Donne
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
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Super-Infinite
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Summary
John Donne lived myriad lives. Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing. He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, an MP, a priest, the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral - and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a high-born girl without her father's consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from black surges of sadness, yet expressed in his verse electric joy and love.
From a standout scholar, a biography of John Donne: the poet of love, sex, and death. In Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell embarks on a fleet-footed 'act of evangelism', showing us the many sides of Donne's extraordinary life, his obsessions, his blazing words, and his tempestuous Elizabeth times - unveiling Donne as the most remarkable mind and as a lesson in living.
Critic reviews
"Every page sparkles." (Claire Tomalin)
"Crackling with gusto and sympathetic intelligence." (Andrew Motion)
"A triumph." (Matt Haig)
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What listeners say about Super-Infinite
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rachel Redford
- 18-05-22
A super-excellent biography
Katherine Rendell is a writer of superb children’s books (check out The Explorer) and also, surprisingly, a Fellow of All Souls. Super-Infinite, her biography of John Donne, is a fabulous gem, what she calls her ‘act of evangelism,’ crammed with a detailed, wide-ranging and stimulating examination of every transformation of Donne’s life, writings and background. I loved it and have listened to it twice to catch the details which can be missed listening to a serious work as packed full as this one.
What makes Rendell’s work so satisfying is the way she weaves background material her subject. The brutal persecution of Catholics under Elizabeth raged through Donne’s early life with Catholics hanged, drawn and quartered, including women, members of his own family and the young priest sheltered by Donne’s brother Henry who died from the inhuman treatment he received in prison. Plague (which she links with the Coronavirus) was a ‘constant stalker’ with people boarded up in their houses to die in their tens of thousands. Donne sailed on expeditions against Spain in 1596 and 1597 witnessing the ships wrecked by storm and engagement with their crews decked in silver lace as they left England educed to vast piles of rotting corpses and suppurating wounds. He witnessed the beheading of Essex following his disastrous rebellion - Essex, who had once strutted in trousers costing as much as a cottage, hanging onto life with a twinkling eye even as as his head was severed. Five of Donne’s twelve children died and his beloved wife Anne lasted only a week after giving birth to the last which was buried with her. No wonder Donne’s works are permeated by death, rot and decay whether it be his poetry, his Sermons delivered to up to 6000 people from St Peter’s pulpit or his courageous arguments surrounding suicide in his 1608 Bathanatos.
Rendell is brilliant on the poems with their 340 neologisms, unfurling the layers of meaning, illustrating what she calls Donne’s “alchemy a mix of unlikely ingredients which spark into gold, images clash up against one another and the world looks, however briefly, new”. She gives a vast range of contemporary detail, such as whores’ ‘purses’ (think about the one well loved for her handstands!) and Eton’s rat-infested dormitories to astronomical discoveries and the first production of Twelfth Night, which all hugely enlighten and extend.
There’s a great deal more to be said about this book but this is enough! Just listen and revel in it. Narrating a book like this with plentiful quotation from prose and poetry and so many changes of topic and tone can’t be an easy task and a sub-standard narration would have been ruinous. But full marks to Jamie Parker for his faultless narration for which Katherine Rendell must be very grateful.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 26-10-22
Breathtaking
What an astounding book. Katherine Rundell’s storytelling, syntax and composition is breathtaking. Jamie Parker’s narration is astounding, each word so perfectly judged, read at the tempo that the writing deserved.
The best book I’ve ever listened to. Just beautiful.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Bernard Rosewalll
- 03-03-23
Ignorance was mine.
I was, until I read this book, under the illusion I knew everything about Donne. I was both his admirer and teacher of his work. What a humiliating experience then to have read Katherine Rundell's book for the shock was profound when I discovered how little I actually knew about John Donne.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Nicola
- 01-09-22
knowing John Donne
A brilliant listen. I feel I know the man now, his era and the history of the time.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Nicola
- 27-02-23
Fascinating
An amazing life well-told in this book. A genius who came good within his lifetime.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- David Adams
- 22-02-23
brilliant
I enjoyed this reading of the book. Well worth your time. Now I need to read some John Donne~☆
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 11-02-23
Stunning
What an achievement! Gripping, informative and glows with enthusiasm for the subject. I have never enjoyed a biography so much
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Robbie Stamp
- 09-02-23
A Beard Trimmed by an Ice Skate
Genuinely one of the best written, most profound and beautiful books I’ve listened to on Audible. The author’s own sense of language provides a lattice in which to explore John Donne of whom I had always been a little frightened before!
The performance is also wonderful.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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- Reets
- 29-01-23
My book club choice
An excellent read. I really enjoyed it although it wasn’t the sort of book I would normally chosen.u
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anony Mouse
- 24-01-23
Extraordinary writer. Extraordinary subject. Extraordinary book..
Katherine Rundell is a truly extraordinary writer. With her wonderful, creative voice; backed by her thorough, wide-ranging research, she has developed a fascinating narrative about John Donne.
Read this whether you are interested in poetry or not: it is gripping, interesting, thoughtful, and beautifully told.
First rate narration too.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 23-11-22
Glorious
Excellent book by a very promising new voice, read most deliciously by Jamie Parker. You won’t regret it.
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