Visitation

New Directions Paperbook

By: Jenny Erpenbeck

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

A best seller in Germany, Visitation has established Jenny Erpenbeck as one of Europe’s most significant contemporary authors.

A forested property on a Brandenburg lake outside Berlin lies at the heart of this darkly sensual, elegiac novel. Encompassing over 100 years of German history, from the 19th century to the Weimar Republic, from World War II to the Socialist German Democratic Republic, and finally reunification and its aftermath, Visitation offers the life stories of 12 individuals who seek to make their home in this one magical little house. The novel breaks into the everyday life of the house and shimmers through it, while relating the passions and fates of its inhabitants. Elegant and poetic, Visitation forms a literary mosaic of the last century, tearing open wounds and offering moments of reconciliation, with its drama and its exquisite evocation of a landscape no political upheaval can truly change.

©2008, 2010 Eichborn AG, Frankfurt am Main. Translation copyright Susan Bernofsky (P)2019 New Directions Publishing Corp.

Perfect Match of Narrator & Story

Fascinating, captivating, engaging. A story that endures. I capture something new each time I listen. My favorite audio book.

Work of art

Best beginning and ending I’ve heard in a long time. Wide eyed rendering of reality.

The perspective

I very much appreciated the narrator’s voice as embodying the narrator point of view. I found that as soon as I finished the book, I needed to begin again. The second listen settled many of the various family details that eluded me on the first round.

Narrator voice too actorly for my taste.

Good book. Good structure for audio listening. I bet this is some people"s favorite type of narrator. Not my taste. I don't like audio books to be "performed" like a play. If the narrator's voice is too animated, it's hard for me to concentrate on the meaning of the words. That's just me.

Narration Struggle

Wasn't able to finish, the narrator was too hard to listen to. Not engaging so my mind kept wandering. Would probably be a better read.