The Woman of Andros, Thornton Wilder
The Woman of Andros, Thornton Wilder
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The Woman of Andros

Author: Thornton Wilder

Narrator: Jane Copland

Unabridged: 3 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Caedmon

Published: 05/05/2020

Synopsis

“From the earliest pages of his first novels and plays, Wilder examined the universal quandaries encapsulated in the questions the young man Pamphilus asks in The Woman of Andros: “How does one live? What does one do first?” — Penelope Niven Thornton Wilder’s celebrated novel The Woman of Andros, set before the birth of Christ on an obscure Greek island, tells the story of the enigmatic Chrysis, a courtesan (and an outcast) of haunting beauty and intelligence. In her gatherings with the young men of the island, Chrysis probes what is precious about life, and how we live, love, and die in a harsh world, themes that Wilder revisited eight years later in his play, Our Town. Pamphilus, the only son of a prominent villager, fathers a baby out of wedlock with Chrysis’s sister, whom he wants to marry. The questions faced by Pamphilus, his family and the other “respectable” citizens of the island also explore themes of social class and status.

About Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of his seven novels, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, as did two of his four full-length dramas, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). The Matchmaker was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly! Wilder also enjoyed enormous success with many other forms of the written and spoken word, among them teaching, acting, opera, and film, including his classic screenplay for Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The writer’s many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ostap on October 13, 2021

This edition includes Wilder’s first and third novels, those that bookend ‘The Bridge of San Luis Rey’, the classic which launched him to fame. Like that novel, the settings are somewhat artificial; in ‘The Cabala’ it’s the old guard aristocratic society in Rome, which Wilder visited as a young man......more

Goodreads review by Pascale on August 15, 2023

"The Cabala" is definitely a young man's book, being semi-autobiographical and slightly over-written. That said, it is quite enjoyable as a variation on the theme of the American abroad. The narrator, later nicknamed "Samuele" by his Italian friends, is first introduced to Roman high society by a fe......more

Goodreads review by L. on July 05, 2024

It often happens that a reader will get a completely different message from the one the author originally intended, and there's nothing wrong with it in my almighty opinion. (BTW, I didn't read The Cabala part.) Set in ancient Greece, Chrysis is a strong, independent, educated woman with control over......more

Goodreads review by Russel on April 30, 2024

Wilder is a master of short fiction, a genius at setting a scene and giving the measure of a character in doses. I did not enjoy them as much as The Bridge, but The Cabala in particular was delightful......more

Goodreads review by J. Lee on March 06, 2013

It's one of Wilder's early novels, and it does come across pompous and it feels like Wilder was trying to impress us with his wit (lots of use of passive voice in this work) and he gets lost in trying to be clever. But, it does ring true about Wilder himself in the undercurrent and unstated bits if......more

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