-
Gargantua and Pantagruel
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 34 hrs and 50 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $41.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Golden Ass
- By: Apuleius, E. J. Kenney - translator
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this ancient picaresque adventure, Lucius, an insatiably curious young man, finds himself transformed into a donkey after his fascination with black magic and witchcraft goes awry. While trapped in his new body, he becomes the property of thieves, farmers, cooks, soldiers and priests, and observes the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Imperial Roman society.
-
-
Not Wiser…But Very Well Informed
- By John on 10-03-17
By: Apuleius, and others
-
The Complete Essays of Montaigne
- By: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Donald M. Frame - translator
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 49 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment, one seems to be listening to Montaigne himself - the freshness of his ideas, the unexpected choice of words. Frame has kept everything.” (Andre Maurois, The New York Times Book Review)
-
-
Spend some enjoyable time with Michel de Montaigne
- By Rooby on 10-04-12
By: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, and others
-
The Possessed
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
- Length: 27 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence.
-
-
Womderful
- By Tad Davis on 12-07-17
By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others
-
The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
-
-
Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
-
The Anatomy of Melancholy
- By: Robert Burton
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 56 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1621, and hardly ever out of print since, it is a huge, varied, idiosyncratic, entertaining and learned survey of the experience of melancholy, seen from just about every possible angle that could be imagined. The Anatomy of Melancholy, presented here with all the original quotations in English, is, at last, available on audiobook in its entirety.
-
-
Nam Et Doctis Hisce Erroribus Versatus Sum
- By Darwin8u on 05-26-20
By: Robert Burton
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
worth the wait
- By L. Kerr on 06-01-20
By: Thomas Mann
-
The Golden Ass
- By: Apuleius, E. J. Kenney - translator
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this ancient picaresque adventure, Lucius, an insatiably curious young man, finds himself transformed into a donkey after his fascination with black magic and witchcraft goes awry. While trapped in his new body, he becomes the property of thieves, farmers, cooks, soldiers and priests, and observes the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Imperial Roman society.
-
-
Not Wiser…But Very Well Informed
- By John on 10-03-17
By: Apuleius, and others
-
The Complete Essays of Montaigne
- By: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Donald M. Frame - translator
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 49 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment, one seems to be listening to Montaigne himself - the freshness of his ideas, the unexpected choice of words. Frame has kept everything.” (Andre Maurois, The New York Times Book Review)
-
-
Spend some enjoyable time with Michel de Montaigne
- By Rooby on 10-04-12
By: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, and others
-
The Possessed
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
- Length: 27 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence.
-
-
Womderful
- By Tad Davis on 12-07-17
By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others
-
The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
-
-
Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
-
The Anatomy of Melancholy
- By: Robert Burton
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 56 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1621, and hardly ever out of print since, it is a huge, varied, idiosyncratic, entertaining and learned survey of the experience of melancholy, seen from just about every possible angle that could be imagined. The Anatomy of Melancholy, presented here with all the original quotations in English, is, at last, available on audiobook in its entirety.
-
-
Nam Et Doctis Hisce Erroribus Versatus Sum
- By Darwin8u on 05-26-20
By: Robert Burton
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
worth the wait
- By L. Kerr on 06-01-20
By: Thomas Mann
-
Don Quixote
- Translated by Edith Grossman
- By: Edith Grossman - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 39 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.
-
-
Masterpiece - in literature and narration!
- By Peter Y C. on 06-13-14
By: Edith Grossman - translator, and others
-
Le Morte d'Arthur
- By: Sir Thomas Malory
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hear the immortal story of Arthur, the once and future king! The legendary tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table is a superb story of adventure, love, honor, and betrayal. Originally published in 1485, Malory's epic poem, Le Morte d'Arthur, is filled with dramatic power and deep, tragic irony. Guenever, Launcelot, Mordred, the quest for the Holy Grail and the ultimate doom of Arthur's realm - it's all here.
-
-
Derek Jacobi is Astounding
- By Edward on 05-31-03
-
The Book of Disquiet
- By: Fernando Pessoa
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Assembled from notes and jottings left unpublished at the time of the author’s death, The Book of Disquiet is a collection of aphoristic prose-poetry musings on dreams, solitude, time and memory. Credited to Pessoa’s alter ego, Bernardo Soares, who chronicles his contemplations in this so-called "factless" autobiography, the work is a journey of one man’s soul and, by extension, of all human souls that allow their minds and hearts to roam far and free.
-
-
The book that saved my life
- By Hutchinson on 03-09-21
By: Fernando Pessoa
-
The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
-
-
An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
-
Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
- By: Plutarch
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 83 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Plutarch (c. AD 46-AD 120) was born to a prominent family in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, about 20 miles east of Delphi in the region known as Boeotia. His best known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek life and one Roman life as well as four unpaired single lives.
-
-
For the Very Dedicated
- By John Pinkerton on 03-13-18
By: Plutarch
-
The Kalevala
- By: Elias Lönnrot, Keith Bosley - translator
- Narrated by: Keith Bosley
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Kalevala provides a compelling insight into the myths and folklore of Finland. Compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century, this impressive volume follows a tradition of oral storytelling that goes back some 2000 years, and it is often compared to such epic poems as Homer's Odyssey. However, The Kalevala has little in common with the culture of its Nordic neighbors: It is primarily poetic, it is mythical rather than historic, and its heroes solve their problems with magic more often than violence.
-
-
This was Meant to be Read Aloud
- By FinalFrontier on 06-13-16
By: Elias Lönnrot, and others
-
Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
-
-
Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
-
Faust: Parts I & II
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Philippe Duquenoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Faust has long been considered one of the most important works of European literature ever published. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe began writing Faust in the 1770s while still a young man, spending most of his adult life on the project. Faust was finally finished almost 50 years later, near the end of his life. Faust is a philosophical drama full of humor, satire, and tragedy. The demon Mephistopheles makes a bet with God that he can lure Faust from the path of good.
-
-
Wonderful Performance
- By David Sanders on 03-15-18
-
Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: Auriol Smith, Gunnar Cauthery, Stephen Critchlow, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Faust is one of the pillars of Western literature. This classic drama presents the story of the scholar Faust, tempted into a contract with the Devil in return for a life of sensuality and power. Enjoyment rules, until Faust’s emotions are stirred by a meeting with Gretchen, and the tragic outcome brings Part 1 to an end. Part 2, written much later in Goethe’s life, places his eponymous hero in a variety of unexpected circumstances, causing him to reflect on humanity and its attitudes to life and death.
-
-
Goethe's play wasn't usually performed in full...
- By cheresse on 09-29-12
-
Sentimental Education
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frederic Moreau is a law student returning home to Normandy from Paris when he first notices Mme Arnoux, a slender, dark woman several years older than himself. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will last a lifetime. He befriends her husband, an influential businessman, and their paths cross and re-cross over the years. Through financial upheaval, political turmoil, and countless affairs, Mme Arnoux remains the constant, unattainable love of Moreau’s life.
-
-
When Crimes of Passion Were All the Fashion
- By W Perry Hall on 03-12-17
By: Gustave Flaubert
-
The Satyricon
- By: Petronius
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Libidinous, licentious, salacious and very, very funny, The Satyricon is one of the most remarkable documents from ancient Rome. It tells the ribald story of Encolpius, a man of active and varied appetites (powered notably by his passion for his favourite lover, the handsome Giton), who plunges without inhibition into the life of Roman pleasures: orgies of food, feasting, abundant sex and escapades. The kind of hedonism found occasionally in Roman mosaics is here brought to life.
-
-
An impactful historical work of art.
- By Josh.28 on 03-17-19
By: Petronius
-
Don Quixote
- By: John Ormsby - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 36 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The most influential work of the entire Spanish literary canon and a founding work of modern Western literature, Don Quixote is also one of the greatest works ever written. Hugely entertaining but also moving at times, this episodic novel is built on the fantasy life of one Alonso Quixano, who lives with his niece and housekeeper in La Mancha. Quixano, obsessed by tales of knight errantry, renames himself ‘Don Quixote’ and with his faithful servant Sancho Panza, goes on a series of quests.
-
-
More than funny
- By Colin on 08-21-11
By: John Ormsby - translator, and others
Publisher's Summary
"Most noble and illustrious drinkers..." Thus begins Gargantua and Pantagruel, a grotesque and carnivalesque collection of exuberant, fantastical stories that takes us from the ancient world through to the European Renaissance. At the heart of these tall tales are the giant Gargantua and his equally seismic son, Pantagruel. Containing magical adventures, maniacal punning, slapstick humor, erudite allusions, and just about any bodily function one can think of, here is quite possibly the zaniest, most risqué book ever written.
Featuring the original translation by Urquhart and Motteaux - celebrated for its fluidity and playfulness.
Bill Homewood gives a virtuosic and delightfully exuberant reading of this extraordinary text - "a narrator so perfectly matched to his material that you can't help but smile." [The Times (London)]
What listeners say about Gargantua and Pantagruel
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- amazon
- 02-13-20
The king of all the narrators
Oof. Done! Finished my Gargantua & Pantagruel novel. Definitely wouldn’t have made it as a regular book. So much detail, obscure references and endless word play. Parts could be very funny though especially Panurge’s consistent and hilarious though not unreasonable cowardliness. On the last chapter Pantagruel and his friends search and find the the temple of the bottle in which a great book is read by swallowing it’s chapters. Extremely imaginative and a source influence, no doubt, of a great many subsequent great novels. The narrator is the king of all narrators, as far as I’m concerned. Not only giving the the rich langue it’s due but also bringing to life the numberless zany characters that dwell in this remarkable book. One last note, it’s odd that it’s called G&P since Gargantua isn’t in most of the novel but rather his son Pantagruel and and his buddies. I try to imagine this a movie and I simply cannot but I suppose every road movie and novel owes a debt of gratitude.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MargaRose
- 01-26-21
Panurge, too merry or to marry, that's a question.
Francois Rabelais - a sublime satirist, salacious master of innuendo & double entendre, and an astute, detailed, unabashed observer of human conduct.
Gargantua & Pantagruel - an immensely surreal, tremendously madcap, enormously outlandish upending of normative behavior by relentless, topsy-turvy, X-rated silliness, interspersed with scientific observation and biting philosophical commentary.
Urquhart and Motteaux translation - jovial, exuberant, luxurious use of English language.
Bill Homewood's reading - an exquisite, stellar, thoroughly delicious performance.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- D. Kirby
- 02-03-18
Relentless, but repays diligence
What made the experience of listening to Gargantua and Pantagruel the most enjoyable?
by all means, google image Gustav Dore's illustrations to go with this title
What was one of the most memorable moments of Gargantua and Pantagruel?
the ode to drinking is worth the price of the whole audiobook, assuming you are a lover of the devils brew
What about Bill Homewood’s performance did you like?
Hard to imagine another audible reader doing justice to Rabelais
6 people found this helpful