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The Talisman
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
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The Talisman
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Summary
A poor but doughty Scottish crusader, known as Sir Kenneth or the Knight of the Leopard, on a mission far from the camp encounters a Saracen emir, with whom, after an inconclusive combat, he strikes up a friendship. This emir proves subsequently to be Saladin himself, and he presently appears in the Christian camp in the disguise of a physician sent by the Soldan to Richard, whom he quickly cures.
Meanwhile, Sir Kenneth is lured from his post by Queen Berengaria, Richard's wife, who in a frolic sends him an urgent message purporting to come from Edith Plantagenet, for whom Sir Kenneth has a romantic attachment. During his brief absence, his faithful hound is wounded and the English flag torn down. Sir Kenneth, thus dishonored, narrowly escapes execution at Richard's order by the intervention of the Moorish physician, who receives him as his slave. Kindly and honorably treated by Saladin, he is sent, in the disguise of a black mute attendant, to Richard, whom he saves from assassination. Richard pierces Kenneth's disguise and gives him the opportunity he desires of discovering who wounded the hound and tore down the standard.
As the Christian princes and their forces file past the re-erected standard, the hound springs on Conrade of Montferrat and tears him from his horse. A trial by combat is arranged in which Sir Kenneth defeats and wounds Montferrat, and is revealed to be Prince David of Scotland. The obstacle that his supposed lowly birth presented to his union with Edith Plantagenet is thus removed.
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- colin monteith
- 08-09-18
High Drama in Desert
Exciting tale of chivalry and treachery during a truce between Crusaders and Saracens. Intrigue romance and surprises mixed together make this intoxicating tale.
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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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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sawo
- 31-01-22
Enjoyable performance
Fantastic story even though it is wordy in parts. The reading performance was fantastic and made it very enjoyable.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- troy bettles
- 28-02-22
The Talisman
Enjoyable listen and a good performance by Robert Whitfield.
My first WS novel, & highly recommended. An enjoyable good old fashioned romp.
I look forward to listening to more of Sir Walter Scott’s works.
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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
- Amazon Customer
- 10-04-24
A very attractive reading of a Scottish classic
The speed of the storyline and the characterisation of the people involved . One of the best of Scott’s novels
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- KalteStern
- 20-02-22
Interesting as a historical literary artefact
Walter Scott is much less popular than many other 19th century authors in English, such as Dickens, Trollope, Gaskell, Hardy etc and I listened to this partly to see why not.
Pretty obvious, given the arcane and almost wilfully obscure vocabulary ( I suspect that earlier readers relished this very quality as a sign of refinement),and priggish pomposity of most of the characters.
Arguably it is no more or less accurate that the majority of 'historical' fiction, which betrays more about the values of it times and its author than about the events depicted (see, he's got me at it now!) but I found the style very turgid. And if we are going to get formal about things, far to many sentences that end in prepositions, and an irritating assumption that even a reader, rather than a listener, cannot keep track of a dialogue between two characters without being prompted with some verbose reminder of their identity at every line. A modern copy editor would have no truck with what would now be regarded as clumsy over-writing.
Having said that, the narrator's verbal style matches the text, and he does a good job with differentiating the characters. But life is real too short for this, given that so many other period authors are so much better. Back to Elliot, says I
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1 person 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
- F. COOPER
- 25-09-21
Really enjoyed revisiting an old friend.
The best Scott novel to read or listen too first.
Try Quentin Durward as a follow-up. Many of the others start with 30+ pages of introductory description and scene setting. You meet the main characters in a desert scrap early in this novel.... much easier to learn the wonderful pace and description of Scott after such a start.
I enjoyed the narration which I found comfortable and well paced.
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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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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 27-01-22
Fun little tale
Good story well narrated. If only the historic Richard Lionheart was anything like this.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Glenn Michael Harper
- 27-04-22
Hark! Thoust trestle of offal be engulfed in flame
Where to begin. The works of Walter Scott popularized historical fiction in the nineteenth century, but time has not been kind listening to this in 2022. The world of Outremer fleshed out in cardboard cut outs, with characters so wooden as to be absurd, this resembles more a comic opera by Gilbert & Sullivan than a good piece of fiction.
This comedy is only enhanced by the narration of Whitfield, whose voice evokes the spirit of Terry-Thomas fiddling with his pointed 'tache. The laughter becomes all consuming when Whitfield affects a high pitched voice for the female characters, an attempt that turns into a Python-esque farce.
An intoxicating tale indeed, as listening to this tripe certainly resembles food poisoning.
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