Every so often I give one of the classics a try and seem to have little success. I guess they're just not for me, but here goes another one!
Read nicely by Gabrielle de Cuir, I had a problem not with the reader, but with the stories. I started this in conjunction with an ebook of similarly ghostly short stories by a variety of authors and curiously I had the same experience with both of them - the first story started out fine, but the more I listened/read, the less I liked it, and subsequent stories bored me. They were slow to the point of lethargy, unappealing, and difficult to follow at times. Admittedly I listened to the Wharton stories while commuting to and from work, so there were distractions, but even in the quiet of the early morning when there's little to no traffic, I had a hard time finding anything interesting to listen to.
The eight stories are these, in case you want to look them up. Some or all of them may well be public domain by now, and available on the Gutenberg Project or some other similar online platform for free:
- The Fulness of Life
- The Lady's Maid's Bell
- Afterward
- The Letters
- Mr Jones
- A Journey
- The Hermit and the Wild Woman
- The Quicksand
I made it only about halfway through this before giving it up as a bad job. I can't commend it based on the experience I had despite Gabrielle de Cuir's sweet and mellow voice. This is my second experience of this author and my last. I did not like The Age of Innocence either so it's time to move on and give other authors a chance.
