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A Possible Life

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A Possible Life

By: Sebastian Faulks
Narrated by: Christian Rodska, Lucy Briers, Rupert Degas, Samuel West, Sian Thomas
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Five lives overlap across two centuries. School teacher Geoffrey’s war takes him to the brink of sanity; Billy’s fortitude lifts him from the Victorian slums in London; Elena and Jeanne interrogate the notion of the soul, from opposite points of view, a century apart. And for Anya, a young American singer-songwriter, only her producer Jack can understand the depths of their bond as art and life collide.

In a symphony of fiction, A Possible Life defies the boundaries of the novel, to explore the deepest questions of how we are connected to one another.

'Profound . . . Faulks evokes a deep compassion' OBSERVER
'Does what a good novel should - it unsettles, it moves, and it forces us to question who we are' SUNDAY TIMES
'A delight . . . moving and exciting' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'A Possible Life is more than the sum of its parts . . . the stories acquire power as resonances between them accrete. Only at the end do you realise you've been won over by their quiet, glinting virtuosity' THE TIMES

© Sebastian Faulks 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2012

 Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Short Stories Heartfelt Thought-Provoking
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Critic reviews

Most easily appreciated as a series of compelling short stories. Poignant, powerful and tender, they are lined by the pain and passion, hope and hardship, accident and design which make up the drama of an individual life
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What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

This is not a novel but a set of 5 long short stories, with a tenuous and barely discernible link between them. The first 2 stories were riveting & I could really identify with the characters. The 3rd was interesting, the 4th baffling and the last just plain boring and pretentious. Quite disappointing, as I have loved all Sebastian Faulks's previous books.

What will your next listen be?

Doors Open by Ian Rankin.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

All five narrators were good, very clear. I particularly liked the Cockney narration of the second story, which was appropriate and well done.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Yes, two really good and stories, which reflected well the period in which they were set. Believable characters, beautiful prose.

Any additional comments?

Not about the book itself, but the description on the Audible website could have made the nature of the book clearer.

Something of a curate's egg.

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Love Sebastian Faulks' work. At first found sudden switch from one reader and life story to another confusing. But it does seem to come together by the end. Superb reading performances throughout.

Seems to come together at ens

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Faulkes writes beautifully about war; he captures the inhumanity, the waste, the wanton cruelty and the senselessness of it all. The first of the stories that are loosely linked in the text, is an examination of war and its cruelty and I found it horrifying and disturbing. Having read Birdsong I knew his ability to place his reader in the event, but this story had an even greater impact. The move from story to story is quite abrupt and this is a disadvantage to lstening to this text rather than reading it.

Dark and haunting tales

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Initially very well written and evocative stories, making the characters come alive. But I found the book marred by the long drawn out last story of the singer and her companion, the narrator, undermined by scarcely credible slushy sentimentality, startling to me because it seemed so far removed from the convincing rest of the book. Not helped here either by the reader’s inauthentic accents. I was sorry that the book ended here, without a chance of redeeming itself.

Good strong stories, except the last one

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Any additional comments?

You don't read/listen to Faulks to cheer you up. and yet I find him strangely life affirming - at least in this case. He has a penchant for the melancholic, but still manages to extract something from it that leaves me optimistic and cheered, and this collection of novelettes is no different. It took me some time to have a sense of the themes that link them, and yet by the end it was clear that they belong together even if I find it a little hard to explain why. Something to do with lost loves, lives that could have turned out another - more apparently positive way, and looking back on life and savouring it despite all the difficulties/ disappointments.Anyway, as my first experience of an audiobook (Apart from Harry Potter, and that really doesn't count as my - then young - daughter made me!), this left me thoughtful, hopeful and wanting more to help with my new, extended commute to work; and for me that seems like a pretty good recommendation.

Rather typically doleful

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