House of Names

De: Colm Tóibín

Narrado por: Juliet Stevenson, Charlie Anson, Pippa Nixon

Winner of the 2018 Audie Award for Literary Fiction & Classics

From the thrilling imagination of best-selling, award-winning Colm Tóibín comes a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra - spectacularly audacious, violent, vengeful, lustful, and instantly compelling - and her children.

"I have been acquainted with the smell of death." So begins Clytemnestra's tale of her own life in ancient Mycenae, the legendary Greek city from which her husband, King Agamemnon, left when he set sail with his army for Troy. Clytemnestra rules Mycenae now, along with her new lover, Aegisthus, and together they plot the bloody murder of Agamemnon on the day of his return after nine years at war.

Judged, despised, cursed by gods she has long since lost faith in, Clytemnestra reveals the tragic saga that led to these bloody actions: how her husband deceived her eldest daughter, Iphigeneia, with a promise of marriage to Achilles, only to sacrifice her because that is what he was told would make the winds blow in his favor and take him to Troy; how she seduced and collaborated with the prisoner Aegisthus, who shared her bed in the dark and could kill; how Agamemnon came back with a lover himself; and how Clytemnestra finally achieved her vengeance for his stunning betrayal - his quest for victory greater than his love for his child.

In House of Names, Colm Tóibín brings a modern sensibility and language to an ancient classic and gives this extraordinary character new life so that we not only believe Clytemnestra's thirst for revenge but applaud it. He brilliantly inhabits the mind of one of Greek myth's most powerful villains to reveal the love, lust, and pain she feels. Told in four parts, this is a fiercely dramatic portrait of a murderess who will herself be murdered by her own son, Orestes. It is Orestes' story, too: his capture by the forces of his mother's lover, Aegisthus, his escape, and his exile. And it is the story of the vengeful Electra, who watches over her mother and Aegisthus with cold anger and slow calculation until, on the return of her brother, she has the fates of both of them in her hands.

©2017 Colm Tóibín (P)2017 Simon & Schuster

Optime! What a great rendition of Fall of the House of Atreus and parts of the Oresteia!

Gripping, articulate, accurate to the Classic literary tradition. The speakers are fabulous. Character development is superb. This is a great listen!

Enjoyed… lots of surprises

This is the first book that I have read by this author. It was intriguing, kept my interest throughout and filled with surprises.

Power. Control. Restraint.

Colm Toibin is a favorite novelist, and House of Names is one of his best. His legendary characters, whose names I vaguely knew—Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes, Electra—struggle in ways that are both remote (the classical world) and current (the lust for power). The novel is filled with surprises, right until the end. The characters accept their world of unbearable violence with restraint and (often) quiet determination.

This novel is so well-written, I would want to listen again. The prose is spare and often moving. By the end, I felt like I knew the palace corridors, the sunken gardens and the barren landscape as if I’d seen a film.

The three narrators were superb. They made judicious use of silence, giving this reader a few moments to grasp the subtlety of the characters’ interactions and the shock of some of the action. Overall, a superb listen.

Have never enjoyed Greek history until now.

Colm Toibin, masterful as always has brought this story fully present. Bravo. I listened to this as I have always enjoyed his work and just discovered the treat of Juliet Stevenson as a reader.

Beautifully written, beautifully read!

I love the works of Toiban. Similar to Ishiguro each book is so different. This is a compelling rewrite of the Orestes revenge myth, certainly not like any of the ancient tales. Would highly recommend

Very interesting. An angle of this story I’ve never seen.

An angle of this story I’ve never read. Very good narrators. All in all worth the time.

A brilliant book!

Where does House of Names rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Listening to, as opposed to reading this book, adds much to it. It is in the voices of Clytemnestra, Orestes and Elektra, each read by a different reader. And it is fitting to have a Greek legend read to you as it honors the ancient tradition of how the stories were told.

Any additional comments?

If you enjoyed The Master and The Testament of Mary, you will love The House of Names. Colm Toibin outdoes himself in this work. He combines his exceptional ability to imagine the life of legendary figures and make them human by giving them a voice, as well as leaving much to the imagination in what is said and what is unsaid, as in the relationship between Orestes and Leander.

Marvelous story, marvelous cast

Juliet Stevenson could read the phone book and I would be enchanted but all three narrators breathed so much life into this ancient story.

Greek myth revisited

loved the book and the narration . sorry it ended abruptly. wanted more about Orestes.

Hauntingly tragic, unfortunate ending

This retelling broke me, it’s was so beautifully told and rewritten, I can’t imagine the characters any other way now. However, the ending was dreadfully disappointing, and rather boring.