In the Penal Colony
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In the Penal Colony
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Narrated by:
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Peter Yearsley
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By:
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Franz Kafka
About this listen
"In the Penal Colony" ("In der Strafkolonie") (also translated as "In the Penal Settlement") is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919. The story is set in an unnamed penal colony. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's "The Torture Garden" as an influence. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. "In the Penal Colony" describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin before letting him die, all in the course of 12 hours. As the plot unfolds, the listener learns more and more about the machine, including its origin and original justification.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,870
A century after it first appeared, Crime and Punishment remains one of the most gripping psychological thrillers. A poverty-stricken young man, seeing his family making sacrifices for him, is faced with an opportunity to solve his financial problems with one simple but horrifying act: the murder of a pawnbroker. She is, he feels, just a parasite on society. But does the end justify the means? Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov makes his decision and then has to live with it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A masterpiece
- By Timothy on 02-20-16
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The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 457
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 402
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 401
When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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Blind Goddess
- A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel, Book 1
- By: Tom Geddes - translator, Anne Holt
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4 out of 5 stars 118
A small-time drug dealer is found battered to death on the outskirts of the Norwegian capital, Oslo. A young Dutchman, walking aimlessly in central Oslo covered in blood, is taken into custody but refuses to talk. When he is informed that the woman who discovered the body, Karen Borg, is a lawyer, he demands her as his defender, although her specialty is civil, not criminal, law. The young man is adamant: he will speak to Karen Borg, and to her alone.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not Sure Why I Didn't Like It
- By Tracey Rains on 05-28-13
By: Tom Geddes - translator, and others
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Fatelessness
- A Novel
- By: Imre Kertész, Tom Wilkinson - translator
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
At the age of 14, György Köves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and, without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn't particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, "You are no Jew." In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, György remains an outsider.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Shockingly Mundane
- By D. A. Elliott on 01-13-20
By: Imre Kertész, and others
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Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 680
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 613
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 611
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
- By Virginia Waldron on 03-30-17
By: Thomas Mann
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Blindness
- By: José Saramago
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,625
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,161
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,164
A city is hit by a sudden and strange epidemic of "white blindness", which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there social conventions quickly crumble and the struggle for survival brings out the worst in people.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Surrealistic
- By Richard Pesavento on 10-04-08
By: José Saramago
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Cover Her Face
- By: P. D. James
- Narrated by: Penelope Dellaporta
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 809
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 693
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Story4 out of 5 stars 685
Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill. Cover Her Face is P. D. James' electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.
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3 out of 5 stars
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OK but...
- By NoelleJ on 11-14-14
By: P. D. James
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Jack Maggs
- By: Peter Carey
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
With scars on his back and silver in his pocket, the huge figure of Jack Maggs strides across the rich landscape of 19th century London. As this enigmatic man moves through its streets and houses, his single-minded quest to find his son will engender love, deceit, and vengeance in the lives around him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Jack Maggs
- By Kathleen on 04-04-05
By: Peter Carey
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In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 566
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 495
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 493
Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
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Death at La Fenice
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 697
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 622
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 616
During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hercule Poirot in Venice...!!!
- By Emil Grancagnolo on 10-09-22
By: Donna Leon
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Except the Dying
- A Murdoch Mystery, Book 1
- By: Maureen Jennings
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 306
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 259
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Story4 out of 5 stars 260
In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the naked body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. The young victim was pregnant when she died. Detective William Murdoch soon discovers that many of those connected with the girl's life have secrets to hide. Was her death on attempt to cover up a scandal in one of the city's influential families?
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you like the show - don't buy
- By Sarah on 06-09-16
By: Maureen Jennings
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Anna of the Five Towns
- By: Arnold Bennett
- Narrated by: Peter Joyce
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 15
Set in stifled, industrial Staffordshire in the late 19th century, against a strong evangelical background, Anna of the Five Towns tells of the courting of hard businessman Ephraim Tellright's daughter by prosperous and accomplished Henry Mynors. As her father's fortune grows, so does Anna understanding. She realises her legacy and responsibility for the possible ruination of her father's tenants, Titus Price and his son, Willie, who also loves her.
By: Arnold Bennett
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Watt
- By: Samuel Beckett
- Narrated by: Dermot Crowley
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4 out of 5 stars 32
Watt tells the tale of Mr Knott's servant and his attempts to get to know his master. Watt's mistake is to derive the essence of his master from the accidentals of his being, and his painstakingly logical attempts to 'know' ultimately consign him to the asylum. Itself a critique of error, Watt has previously appeared in editions that are littered with mistakes, both major and minor.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great performance!
- By Russell Atwood on 02-18-24
By: Samuel Beckett
What listeners say about In the Penal Colony
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nora Louise Brown
- 04-05-23
Dark, Twisted and Interesting
Very interesting and will keep you hanging onto every word. When you finally get the whole picture, IT’S SHOCKING
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- joseph Gonzalez
- 08-06-18
a bit confusing, but not for Kafka fans
in the penal colony, is a must for any Kafka fan, his views on judgement and punishment, all dark btw, are worthy of our contemplation
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Thomas E. Chase
- 09-25-23
I’m a fan
I have a similar personal perspective, no civil rights from early childhood, and no permitted affection for life, because of just another hocus-pocus condemnation from the extreme prejudice of criminals and bigots
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 04-22-24
in the penal colony
terrible recording quality. a shame as i was looking forward to listening. i would like my credit back.
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