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The Corner That Held Them

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The Corner That Held Them

By: Sylvia Townsend Warner
Narrated by: Emma Gregory
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About this listen

A unique novel about life in a fourteenth-century convent by one of England’s most original authors

Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a historical novel like no other, one that immerses the listener in the dailiness of history, rather than history as the given sequence of events that, in time, it comes to seem. Time ebbs and flows and characters come and go in this novel, set in the era of the Black Death, about a Benedictine convent of no great note. The nuns do their chores, seek to maintain and improve the fabric of their house and chapel, and struggle with each other and with themselves. The book that emerges is a picture of a world run by women but also a story—stirring, disturbing, witty, utterly entrancing—of a community.

What is the life of a community and how does it support, or constrain, a real humanity? How do we live through it and it through us? These are among the deep questions that lie behind this rare triumph of the novelist’s art.

©1948 The Estate of Sylvia Townsend Warner (P)2021 Penguin Audio Fiction Historical Fiction Medieval Women's Fiction Middle ages Witty

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Stunning Classic rendering of a History less well known.

Do listen to this if you love the sound of exquisite language married to a lovely tale.
Although it seems little happens in the precincts of this Manor, in fact, all the machinations of human beings and their frailties impose themselves on daily life. I enjoyed picturing people I knew appearing in the guise of a recalcitrant CEO/Prioress, or egotistical Bishop. The whole scene bristled with vivacious personalities and Life. How wonderful to know that vanity was well and truly existent in those Ages and that peoplewere as deluded as ever about their own motivations.
A word of true praise for the Voice Actor. A tour de force skill level. Beautifully modulated overall and in excellent characterizations when required. Added 100% to the overall experience.

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