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Within a Budding Grove

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Within a Budding Grove

By: Marcel Proust
Narrated by: John Rowe
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About this listen

In the second volume of Proust's great novel, the narrator emerges as an actor in the drama of his own life. Swann has now dwindled into a husband for his former mistress, Odette, and their daughter, Gilberte, becomes the adolescent narrator's playmate and tantalising love object.

We move from Paris to the seaside town of Balbec, from ritualised social performances to midsummer spontaneity and from Gilberte to her successor, Albertine.

In Balbec, the narrator is befriended by the painter Elstir who introduces him both to the craft of painting and to the mysterious 'little band' of girls. An artistic education is thus intricately interwoven with a journey of sexual self-discovery.

This is now the entire audiobook, not in two parts.

©2008 Marcel Proust (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature
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Best reading of a top tier classic
Great voice, tonation, tempo kudos to the narrator

Absolutely fantastic

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I enjoyed the storytelling and the narration is excellent. The story itself can be summarised as “horny teenage boy goes on vacation and makes new friends” but it’s written so sweetly and elaborately that I felt like Proust was painting pictures in my brain. Five Stars ✨

The Horny Teenager

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