Tenderness

De: Alison MacLeod

Narrado por: Antonia Beamish, Bill Hope, Elliot Fitzpatrick, Sophie Aldred, Tim Treloar

Bloomsbury presents Tenderness by Alison MacLeod, read by Antonia Beamish, Tim Treloar, Sophie Aldred, Bill Hope and Elliot Fitzpatrick.

"Powerful, moving, brilliant . . . an utterly captivating read, and I came away from it with this astonished thought: There’s nothing this writer can’t do." —Elizabeth Gilbert

For readers of A Gentleman in Moscow and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, an ambitious, spellbinding historical novel about sensuality, censorship, and the novel that set off the sexual revolution.

On the glittering shores of the Mediterranean in 1928, a dying author in exile races to complete his final novel. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a sexually bold love story, a searing indictment of class distinctions, and a study in sensuality. But the author, D.H. Lawrence, knows it will be censored. He publishes it privately, loses his copies to customs, and dies bereft.

Booker Prize-longlisted author Alison MacLeod brilliantly recreates the novel’s origins and boldly imagines its journey to freedom through the story of Jackie Kennedy, who was known to be an admirer. In MacLeod’s telling, Jackie—in her last days before becoming first lady—learns that publishers are trying to bring D.H. Lawrence’s long-censored novel to American and British readers in its full form. The U.S. government has responded by targeting the postal service for distributing obscene material. Enjoying what anonymity she has left, determined to honor a novel she loves, Jackie attends the hearing incognito. But there she is quickly recognized, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover takes note of her interest and her outrage.

Through the story of Lawrence’s writing of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the historic obscenity trial that sought to suppress it in the United Kingdom, and the men and women who fought for its worldwide publication, Alison MacLeod captures the epic sweep of the twentieth century from war and censorship to sensuality and freedom. Exquisite, evocative, and grounded in history, Tenderness is a testament to the transformative power of fiction.(P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Reseñas de la Crítica

Tenderness is a passionate, epic joy. It's a paean to artistic imagination and freedom, and also to the messy complexity of humanity. The characters leap from the page with astonishing life that is all the more impressive given their historical fame. MacLeod's prose is a masterclass - gripping, lyrical, witty, razor-sharp and filled with, yes, tenderness. I will never forget it.

Tenderness is a triumph and it will conquer your heart. Stunning, illuminating, but also, profoundly moving.

What a triumph of skill and imagination is this powerful, moving, brilliant novel! I’ve never read anything quite like TENDERNESS, and I doubt I ever will again. This is more than a book about a book; this is a book about living — about really living, at the most dangerous and beautiful edges of the human experience. I stand in awe of Alison MacLeod. She is a novelist operating at the peak of her powers — no less a genius than the master whose work she has so lovingly and shrewdly explored here. She moves across time and space like a wizard, wrapping up fact within fiction so magically that you can’t find a seam anywhere. TENDERNESS is an utterly captivating read, and I came away from it with this astonished thought: There’s nothing this writer can’t do.

An ambitious sprawl of a book, splendidly extreme in its magnitude, yet always elegant; a defence of complicated thinking and embodied life.

[An] ambitious blend of research, guesswork, and fabrication.

Glorious and arresting ... A widescreen novel.

This novel has an expansive reach. Humans are contradictory, time folds in on itself, and literature informs life. Quotes from Lawrence’s writing, his contemporaries’ poems, and even this novel itself are layered through the book as if seen through a scrim behind the novel’s primary text.

’Every story,’ MacLeod argues in an afterword, ‘is a story of ‘What If.’ … unexpectedly convincing … against all odds, it [works].

Magnificent . . . MacLeod covers an astonishingly broad range of incidents, eras, and themes in vivid prose, and depicts Lawrence’s supporters and opponents with equal insight and sympathy. . . . A triumphant demonstration of that power, this places MacLeod among the best of contemporary novelists.

Brilliant . . . MacLeod evokes Lawrence's world beautifully, and her Kennedy subplot works shockingly well, as does the students' relationship, which evokes the passion that powered all of Lawrence's work . . . brimming with deeply felt life.

As sublimely crafted as a novel could ever be. Tenderness is an intricate, mesmerising tapestry of love and regret, prudery and desire, loneliness and togetherness, loyalty and betrayal, and the enigmas and conundrums involved in the art of committing these experiences to the page.

On and On and On

Excellent story. Great narration. Book went from here to there and back again at breakneck speed, and though I REALLY wanted to love it…kind-of just didn’t. Had I been reading instead of listening, I never would have finished it.

Tedious and monotonous

This book just lacks interest. the story goes on and on tediously pulling in Jackie Onassis (who everyone loves) for interest but in the most uninteresting way possible. Sorry, I wanted to like this but I really just could not get through it.