Girl, 20 cover art

Girl, 20

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Girl, 20

By: Kingsley Amis
Narrated by: Oliver Chris
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Douglas Yandell, a young-ish music critic, is enlisted by Kitty Vandervane to keep an eye on her roving husband - the eminent conductor and would-be radical Sir Roy - as he embarks on yet another affair. Roy, meanwhile, wants Douglas as an alibi for his growing involvement with Sylvia, an unsuitably young woman who loves nothing more than to shock and provoke. Life soon becomes extremely complicated as Douglas finds himself caught up in a frantic, farcical tangle of relationships, rivalry and scandal.

Girl, 20 is a merciless send-up of 1970s London's permissive society from a master of uproarious comedy.

©1971 Kingsley Amis (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

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One defect here is that the narrator manages to mispronounce most of the names of the various famous composers that are mentioned throughout the text. Given that this is a book about a conductor narrated by a music critic, it’s a fairly considerable irritant and baffling that no one involved seems to have heard of the likes of Weber or Haydn. Apart from that, it’s an enjoyable enough listen through one of Kingsley Amis’s most savagely satirical novels.

Strange pronunciation errors...

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Kingsley once again proves himself a master of the comic. the wrestling scene is divinely funny. You'd have thought the narrator would have looked up how to pronounce certain composer's names, however.

divine comic prose

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I was really surprised at how modern the characters feel considering the book is from 1971 it’s baffling how far society hasn’t actually come. Same issues 50 years later, the voice actor I felt was really impressive at making the characters distinctive and getting a real feel for each person

Great voice acting, story holds up

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... I liked the rendition of w***y Roy, who sounded different from and better than the way I have heard him in my mind's ear. Kitty and carroty Sylv wonderfully done. I can't see nonetheless why 'Weber(n)' is mispronounced; and on the the subject of words that aren't even homonyms, why don't people say 'demur' rather than 'demure' ??... interesting btw is Roy's anti-Americanism. A lot of British progressives can't get enough Americana 50 years after this was written.

Pretty good ...

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