A Laodicean

A Story of Today

By: Thomas Hardy

Narrated by: Clive Chafer

Paula Power, the daughter of a wealthy railway magnate, inherits De Stancy Castle, an ancient castle in need of modernization. She commissions a young architect from London, George Somerset, to undertake the work. Somerset falls in love with Paula. But Paula, the Laodicean of the title, meaning a person who is lukewarm or halfhearted, is torn between George's admiration and that of Captain De Stancy, whose old-world romanticism contrasts with Somerset's forward-looking outlook.

Paula's vacillation in her romantic life is also reflected in her views about religion, politics, and social progress, a dilemma faced by people in the Victorian era as industrialization was beginning to greatly change their lives. Paula will have to decide between the two men, however, or risk losing them both.

Public Domain (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Disappointment

Book would be better if the narrator was somebody else not so stiff
The end a little disappointing for such a great author which I liked all his book
This one left me wishing that there was few more sentences in the end for some justice

Lukewarm

Interesting in its description of Architecture and detail, modern in the frailty of the 1800s version of photoshop and telecommunications, still true today. Love triangle is always timeless.

I’m a Hardy fan

This is a Hardy book I’d not heard of. In spite of that I wanted to listen. I found the reader’s performance lack luster and dull. That may have been on purpose to forward the theme but it disturbed me. That said, I very much enjoyed the story itself.

Not an Easy Listen

The narrator has a voice better suited for documentaries than for novel reading. The cadence of the narrator didn't provide the correct type of emotion needed for the novel. Basically it put me to sleep.

A nice little story.

In spite of the pretty mundane narrative I found, I did want to keep listening until the end.

I have looked at the other reviews, and I'm wondering if I'm I the only one who hears the narrator constantly referring to a she as he? I was often confused as to whom he was referring to.