The Go-Between cover art

The Go-Between

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The Go-Between

By: L. P. Hartley
Narrated by: Sean Barrett
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About this listen

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

Haunting, moving, evocative, The Go-Between is L. P. Hartley's heartbreaking novel about social constraints and childhood innocence.

During the long, hot summer of 1900, young Leo Colston is invited to stay for a month at a lordly, aristocratic manor in Norfolk. There he falls in love with his friend's older sister, who commissions him to ferry secret messages to the local farmer, her lover. His naiveté sustains their affair until ultimately leading to an event that will change their lives irrevocably.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©1953 L.P. Hartley (P)2016 Naxos AudioBooks Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking

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This book is so beautifully written, so descriptive and so wonderful, that I didn't want it to end. It was made all the more precious by Sean Barrett's magnificent voice, which was the perfect choice to read it.

A book about class, wealth, deception, expectation and the total innocence of a 12 year old boy at the turn of the last century , I think I need to listen to it all over again, just because.......

Just Wonderful!

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Disliked nothing. So redolent throughout of the Edwardian period in England. Altogether a highly polished and successful publication.

The quality of the reading, sensitive and capturing character brilliantly.

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I reread this book every couple of years and always enjoy it even more with every subsequent reading.

Fantastic Book

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Despite a slow start, I was totally engrossed in this story and interested in the imagined viewpoint of the young protagonist. For anyone who loves beautifully written language and spot on narration.

Richly detailed and thoughtfully read

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Have read this book so many times and listening to it on audiobook has been like returning to an old friend. Great story and great performance

Love and life through the eyes of a child.

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..and this is one of those books

Pros. Characters are rich, vibrant and well written..the author draws you into the time, scenes and smells of the story well.

Cons...ultimately this is a slow moving and fairly uneventful story..if you like social commentary delivered by benign situational story telling then this is it. But an exciting or gripping read this isnt..

Ultimately it's a story about a boy being naive, delivering letters in a love triangle and growing up to learn that adults can be manipulative, deceitful and human.

Not all classics are deserving of high praise...

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This classic does sound dated, not just the story content, but the style and characterisation. That said, this also forms part of its charm, and it made me think about the sort of life my great grandparents might have had in rural England.
The narrator has an older middle class voice, actually he sounds quite a lot older than the character requires, who is only early sixties, but again this is part of the charm of this audiobook.
It is a snapshot of a bygone age, as well as a coming of age tale.
Well worth a credit and stands head and shoulders above much of the publisher led dross commissioned and pushed on us nowadays.

Well worth a credit

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Beautifully spoken. The book perfectly captures childhood experience and how it shadows adulthood. A nearly perfect book.

innocence lost

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So evocative of its time. Narrator was good but took a while to enjoy as his voice is so bassy and deep.

Wonderfully evocative

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I read this beautifully crafted book when I was Leo’s age at school and then when I was his age in the poignant epilogue. It has moments of humour and even of triumph but it’s a heart-rending tragedy delicately told.

The Past is never dead. It’s not even past.

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