Barry Lyndon, William Makepeace Thackeray
Barry Lyndon, William Makepeace Thackeray
List: $44.00 | Sale: $30.80
Club: $22.00

Barry Lyndon

Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Narrator: Jonathan Keeble

Unabridged: 13 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 01/02/2013

Categories: Fiction, Classic


Synopsis

Like Tom Jones before him, Barry Lyndon is one of the most lively and roguish characters in English literature. He may now be best known through the colourful Stanley Kubrick film released in 1975, but it is Thackeray who, in true 19th-century style, shows the darker side of this 18th-century hero; hence it remains a startling novel. Following the death of an English officer, Barry flees his native Ireland and attempts to establish himself as one of England’s aristocratic elite. Through backstabbing and scheming he reaches the level of society to which he always aspired. However, intent on criticizing the period’s social order, Thackeray ensures that this success is soon followed by the hero’s ultimate decline. Jonathan Keeble’s energetic reading imbues the period with colour and illuminates the sheer inventiveness of Thackeray’s literary and topical satire.

About William Makepeace Thackeray

Add new author biography.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Katie on October 04, 2021

Maybe 2.5. This was an intriguing read, but I didn't love it. The main character is very dislikable – which is certainly the point, and his narrative unreliability is quite interestingly explored, but it makes it harder to enjoy the novel. The pacing was also a little off for me.......more

Goodreads review by Lazarus on August 14, 2011

''...Mr. Barry Lyndon is as unprincipled a personage as ever has figured at the head of a history, and as the public will persist in having a moral appended to such tales, we beg here respectfully to declare that we take the moral of the story of Barry Lyndon, Esquire, to be, - that worldly success......more

Goodreads review by Sasha on April 26, 2017

Turns out Becky Sharp makes a pretty awful dude. The adventurer is a stock villain in Victorian literature. With no money but plenty of charm, he or she tries to marry into comfort, sometimes with the help of one dastardly plot or another. Sir Felix Carbury of Trollope's The Way We Live Now is a good......more