
Double Blind
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Benedict Cumberbatch
-
By:
-
Edward St Aubyn
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
From the author of the internationally acclaimed Patrick Melrose books: a major new novel exploring some of the biggest ideas and most pressing questions of our times.
Double Blind follows three close friends and their circle through a year of extraordinary transformation. Set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur and a re-wilded corner of Sussex, this thrilling, ambitious novel is as compelling about ecology, psychoanalysis, genetics and neuroscience as it is about love, fear and courage.
When Olivia meets a new lover, Francis, just as she is welcoming her dearest friend, Lucy, back from New York, her life expands precipitously. Her connection to Francis, a committed naturalist living off-grid, is immediate and startling. Eager to involve Lucy in her joy, Olivia introduces the two - but Lucy has news of her own that binds the trio unusually close. Over the months that follow, Lucy's boss, Hunter, Olivia's psychoanalyst parents and a young man named Sebastian are pulled into the friends' orbit and not one of them will emerge unchanged.
Expansive, playful and compassionate, Double Blind investigates themes of inheritance, determinism, freedom, consciousness and the stories we tell about ourselves. Most of all, it is a perfect expression of the interconnections it sets out to examine and a moving evocation of an imagined world that is deeply intelligent, often tender, curious and very much alive.
©2021 Edward St Aubyn (P)2021 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
"The experience of St Aubyn is indelible." (Jonathan Franzen)
"A joy." (Zadie Smith)
"Among the giants of English fiction." (Edmund White)
Sublime
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narration was the best bit for me- great characterisation of a diverse range of players.
Underwhelming
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
needs closure....
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
humane
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm afraid this novel falls short of that standard. It is full of great asides, sharp observation, some very cogent musings on the nature of consciousness, science, the high-tech corporate world and, well, nature, but ultimately doesn't seem to know what to do with all the ideas milling around it. After establishing several interesting protagonists (and one or two antagonists) and setting up several potential dramatic conflicts, there is no resolution or indeed epiphany for any of the characters.
(I also feel I must call out the author's 2-dimensional presentation of a couple of secondary figures, both clerics. One is an unworldly Franciscan and the other a scheming Jesuit cardinal. I have to wonder if St Aubyn has ever met an actual Franciscan or Jesuit as his portraits would seem to owe a more to outdated cliché than to actual experience and are seriously off-key in both cases.)
Be that as it may, I found the end result of all the verbal fireworks to be sadly disappointing.
A barnstorming start but ultimately disappointing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Funny, eloquent and well researched
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A brilliant, recognisible St.Aubyn
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Complex story brilliantly read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Gripping narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting story and good narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.