Sophie's Choice

By: William Styron

Narrated by: Norman Snow

In this brilliant, multi-layered novel, a young Southerner, Stingo, wants to become a writer. In Brooklyn, he meets Nathan, a brilliant Jewish intellectual involved in a turbulent love-hate affair with Sophie, a beautiful Polish woman. She has a terrible wound in her past, one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.©1982 William Styron (P)2007 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"No reader of Sophie's Choice can doubt that Styron has put immense energy into trying to understand and deal justly with the evils in American history and the European Holocaust, to say nothing of the evil (as well as the good) in his characters....Scene after scene comes back now, long after I last read the book, with astonishing vividness - perhaps the most obvious mark of a masterpiece." (John Gardner)

The prison of the mind

This tragic story filled me with a variety of emotions. I needed time at the end to pull myself together & dry my tears. Exceptional writing and performance.

Heartbreaking

this story is a heartbreaking tale of a woman who faced the most horrifying choice imaginable.

Masterpiece

One of the greatest books I've ever had the pleasure of listening to.
The writing is brilliant and the story masterful. The narrator is also spectacular; there were many moments where I was lost inside his voice - visualizing the words with my imagination.
Sophie's Choice is undoubtedly one of the best books of the 20th century (or any century for that matter).
I have no idea how this is sitting at a 3.8 average on Audible currently; in my mind it only shows the idiocy of some Audible listeners - listeners who believe listening to a book is the same as reading it.
Highly recommended.

A book that sticks with you

It has been years since I read this book. Never has a book stuck with me so much. The ending completely caught me off guard, Her choice is one that I will remember.

Abridged

Too much of the original story was excluded from this version. Much less impactful. A shell of the original book.

it is not a full text.

reading is good but disappointed that its not a full text. am I mistaken or what.

The skipping of large parts of the story.

Missing large parts of the novel. I am sorry that it was not available in your usual unabridged form.

Finally got to this classic!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes I would, because this way, it's easy to make sure you have read one of the classics.

Was Sophie's Choice worth the listening time?

Yes it was.

Vivid, full of love and unimaginable pain

I have read, listened to, as well as watched the movie several times now. Layers of emotion keep resurfacing in every word, sentence and with every turn of the page you want to yank out each character and save them from heartache and devastating destiny.
The narrating performance of Mr. Snow is outstanding.

so-so

Sound was great, loved the reader. Love anything having to do with the Holocaust, and had always heard what a fantastic novel this was. Perhaps, it would have been better had this been an unabridged version. I could never understand why the protagonist was attracted to this dysfunctional woman. This version failed to help me sympathize with Sophie. It was just so-so