The best of Trollop

I didn’t expect to enjoy this story so much, thinking it’s central theme far fetched. Yet I chose to suspend disbelief as it made its point of how destructive & futile selfish pride can be. Plus I really enjoyed the other stories interwoven in the plot.
And as much as I like Timothy West narrating, Nigel Patterson was a refreshing change, & I thoroughly his take on all characters.

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My first Trollope

I am sure that Trollope would have been an excellent TV series writer if the medium had existed in 1869. That is what the book is like when you listen to it, but with some language quirks.

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1 person found this helpful

Good introduction to Trollope

What did you like most about He Knew He Was Right?

It's an entertaining story, I read because it's included on the 1001 books to read before you die lists and was lucky to have an opportunity for a free copy for an unbiased review.

I was dubious about reading Trollope but was told this isn't a bad one to start with, and I enjoyed it for sure.

What about Nigel Patterson’s performance did you like?

Good performance overall. He presented this really well.

Any additional comments?

I will be reading more Trollope based on my enjoyment of this one.

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3 people found this helpful

Fascinating psychological study

I should think Anthony Trollope was quite ahead of his time in portraying this harrowing study of jealousy turning to a fixation then blinding obsession and finally utter madness. While he doesn’t totally exonerate the female character who sparks off this devastating spiral, accusing her of stubbornness and wilfulness, he becomes ever more sympathetic towards her as the tragedy unfolds. Her ‘crime’ has been a certain dose of pig-headedness combined with - more importantly - a refusal to obey when ‘obeying’ means admitting to something she hasn’t done.
To lighten the central tragedy the book is inhabited by a host of other attractive and not so characters with all their ups and downs but, this being Trollope, you know that all will come out well for the good ones, while enjoying every twist and turn of their journeys.
Nobody can quite match Timothy West in reading Trollope but Nigel Patterson does a creditable job and is especially good at conveying the petulance, aggression and raving irrationality of the wretched man who thought he was so right.

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2 people found this helpful

Anthony Trollope is always perfect

You can never go wrong with his books. And while this might not be as good as some of his series of books it nevertheless stands on its own two feet as a good listen. Nigel Patterson did a good job of narration and was very easy to listen to

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A second Dickens

Trollop is a great story teller. He is wonderfully descriptive: in the manner of Dickens.

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Spoilt by mediocre narration

Would you listen to He Knew He Was Right again? Why?

Only if I had a version of it narrated by Timothy West.

What was one of the most memorable moments of He Knew He Was Right?

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet. It came near the end.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Nigel Patterson?

Not if I can help it! He was reasonably good at the narrative but when it came to dialogue it was awful. The accent and inflections was totally wrong and spoilt the book. I came to see if there was one narrated by someone else to swap, but it is currently the only version of this book on Audible so I had no choice but to keep listening.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

A lot of it was moving.

Any additional comments?

It's such a shame that Timothy West hasn't narrated this book as he has done a lot of Trollope's other books superbly.

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13 people found this helpful

Not the best book by Trollope

Well read but the story is very slow and feels like it will never get to the end.

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A refreshingly up to date reading of a dark, psychological, Victorian tale of a marriage breakdown

I have just listened to the unabridged version of He Knew He Was Right, Trollope's long, dark novel of the breakdown of a marriage, read by Nigel Patterson.

The first thing that strikes me as I listen to Patterson's narration is how much younger he sounds than I expected. Surprisingly so. His voice does not conjure up that middle-aged, bearded father figure, lugubriously expounding for the benefit of his family audience, but instead comes across as a pleasant and lively conversationalist, relating the tale to you. Given the intensity of the subject matter and psychologically deep waters he negotiates, Patterson manages to propel you through the story so that the pace does not flag while doing more than adequate justice to the drama of the unfolding catastrophe.

A quick comparison with several of the other audiobooks I have experienced revealed that he reads some 20% quicker (more words per minute) than the narrators of other "classics" to which I have listened. His pace is more akin to that I have found in audio versions of modern thrillers .

He achieves this pace while maintaining absolute clarity of diction, which makes listening both pleasant and easy.

As with the best of other narrators to whom I have listened, he manages to maintain the sense of the convoluted, many-claused Victorian sentences for the listener with careful attention to the punctuation pauses to convey the impact of the meaning. He also handles the dialogue with a sure touch, whether it be male protagonists' or females' speech he is pronouncing. I never lost the thread of the conversations as he shifted from one speaker to another and back.

Overall the experience felt refreshingly current, as befits the theme of the material and I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone looking for a new interpretation of how to approach Victorian classics.

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17 people found this helpful

Great narration

Timothy West makes an excellent job of narrating all Trollope's novels. Can't recommend highly enough.

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