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Abundance [a novel of Marie Antoinette]

by Naslund, Sena Jeter.

Format: Book on CD 2006
Availability: Available at 1 Library 1 of 1 copy

Available (1)
Location Collection Call #
Penn Hills Library Audio Visual CD NAS
Location  Penn Hills Library
 
Collection  Audio Visual
 
Call Number  CD NAS
 
 

Summary
Marie Antoinette was fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family, her country, and her home to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King Louis XVI of France. Far from home and thrust into the role of woman, wife, and queen, Marie Antoinette lived a brief-but astonishing-life. Based on impeccable historical research, Abundance reveals a Marie Antoinette who rebelled against the formality and rigid protocol of the court-an outsider who became the target of a revolution that ultimately decided her fate. Naslund has created a portrait of a woman very different from the figure we think we know.
Published Reviews
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Appropriately, Burney begins her performance in the adorable upper registers of the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette, shipped to France by her mother, the Empress of Austria, to marry the 15-year-old Dauphin and peacefully conjoin France and Austria. Unfortunately, Burney continues in this insipid tone throughout her reading, which is understandable as Naslund (Ahab's Wife) portrays Marie as Little Mary Sunshine until the moment of her death by guillotine at age 38. Her love affair with a Swedish diplomat is strictly platonic and her inability to empathize with the French people is laid to her paternalistic advisers. All this may or may not be historically true, but it leaves listeners with Marie's diary-style descriptions of her personal and court life: the Dauphin's sexual limitations, the birth of her children, her clothes and hairstyles, girlish friendships and expensive banquets. The abridgment reinforces this focus by cutting little early on, then skipping quickly from one incident to another as the revolution evolves. Naslund's writing is clear and vivid, but offers little for those seeking a deeper understanding of the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Simultaneous release with the William Morrow hardcover (Reviews, May 29). (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Marie Antoinette, -- Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, -- 1755-1793 -- Fiction.
Louis -- XVI, -- King of France, -- 1754-1793 -- Fiction.
Queens -- Fiction.
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction.
France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793 -- Fiction.
Publisher North Kingstown, RI :BBC Audiobooks America,2006
Edition Unabridged.
Contributors Burney, Susanna.
BBC Audiobooks America.
Participants/Performers Read by Susanna Burney.
Language English
Notes Subtitle from container.
Unabridged.
"Sound Library."
Compact disc.
Description 15 audio discs (18 hr., 20 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
ISBN 0792745175
9780792745174
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