Alexander's Bridge
Author : Willa Cather
Performed By : Marguerite Gavin
Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc
Runtime : 2 hours 30 minutes
Categories : Classic Literature
Our Price : $25.95 $9.95
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There is a pleasure in listening to the imagery of Alexander's Bridge that is similar to
viewing a beautiful watercolor, as in the following description of a Boston street in late afternoon: "The sun
sank rapidly; the silvery light had faded from the bare boughs and the watery twilight was setting in when
Wilson at last walked down the hill, descending into cooler and cooler depths of grayish shadow."
Against this delicate imagery, Willa Cather renders the tough inner terrain of a man in mid-life crisis. Bartley
Alexander is a master bridge engineer. At forty-three he is at the height of his power, comfortable with success
and all it brings. Yet he yearns for the lost vibrancy of his youth. He leads a double life, veering between his
beautiful, accomplished wife and his mistress, an actress he knew as a student in Paris. This conflict creates
a crack in the structure of his life which ultimately undermines him.
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Daisy Miller
Author : Henry James
Performed By : Susan O'Malley
Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc
Runtime : 2 hours 30 minutes
Categories : Classic Literature
Our Price : $25.95 $9.95
Purchase...
"By maintaining a vigorous, satisfying pace, Susan O'Malley holds the listener's attention admirably. Her reading is intelligent and agreeable."AudioFile
"What the European male fails to understand is that the American Girl is innocent by definition, mythically innocent; and that her purity depends upon nothing she says or does...."Leslie Fiedler
When Frederick, an American expatriate traveling in Europe, meets the commonplace, newly rich Miller family from New York, he is charmed by the daughter, Daisy, and her "inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence". The Millers have no perception of the complex code that underlies behavior in European society, and Winterbourne is astonished at the girl's unworldliness and her mother's unconcern when Daisy accompanies him to the Castle of Chillon. Some months later, he meets the family in Rome, where Daisy has aroused suspicion among the American colony by being seen constantly with a third-rate Italian. Ostracized by former friends who think her "intrigue" has gone too far, Daisy denies that she is engaged to Giovanelli. Publicly, Winterbourne defends her as simply uncultivated, but privately, he hesitates.
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