The Gap of Time cover art

The Gap of Time

The Winter's Tale Retold (Hogarth Shakespeare)

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The Gap of Time

By: Jeanette Winterson
Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe, Mark Bazeley, Penelope Rawlins
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About this listen

"I saw the strangest sight tonight." New Bohemia. America. A storm. A black man finds a white baby abandoned in the night. He gathers her up - light as a star - and decides to take her home.

London. England. After the financial crash. Leo Kaiser knows how to make money, but he doesn't know how to manage the jealousy he feels towards his best friend and his wife. Is his newborn baby even his?

New Bohemia. Seventeen years later. A boy and a girl are falling in love, but there's a lot they don't know about who they are and where they come from.

Jeanette Winterson's cover version of The Winter's Tale vibrates with echoes of the original but tells a contemporary story where time itself is a player in a game of high stakes that will end in either tragedy or forgiveness. It shows us that however far we have been separated, whatever is lost shall be found.

©2015 Jeanette Winterson (P)2015 Random House AudioBooks
Classics Fiction Literary Fiction Shakespeare England Winter
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What listeners say about The Gap of Time

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  • Overall
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Wonderful.

My favourite book for 2019.

The audio book performances were also superb. I will treasure my audio copy.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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Playing with prose

Where does The Gap of Time rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is certainly amongst the top 10 audiobooks I've listened to all the way through.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Perdita because she is both wise and innocent.

What three words best describe the narrators’s performance?

Flowing, challenging and unusual.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No this one needs time to reflect on between sittings.

Any additional comments?

Never seen a Winter's Tale performed, maybe now it's time to close that gap?

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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A compelling re - telling

I thought this re - imagining of a Winters Tale worked surprisingly well, given the unlikeliness of a rich child disappearing and re-appearing in the household of a poor black family in modern times. Curiosity about the achievement of the resolution drove me through some uneven performances (the older men all sounded like Sandi Toksvieg & the southern accents were awful). I will read the book now too.

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1 person found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book so much....

but the characters were so awful it was hard to. Read the original and skip this.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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A Masterful Retelling of A Winter's Tale

What made the experience of listening to The Gap of Time the most enjoyable?

A classic Shakespearean play was rewritten as a modern cautionary tale stuffed full of likeable and disreputable characters. Utterly believable and very compelling.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favourite?

Pauline.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed , I cried, I worried for characters, I urged them on to do better, my heart ached for them, I cursed their folly. Overall I just became totally engrossed in this marvellous fictional world.

Any additional comments?

You don't have to be familiar with The Winter's Tale to enjoy this.

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Fabulous!

I got the entire "Shakespeare Retold" series because of Jo Nesbo's MacBeth. What an absolute treat it has been!

This is no exception, a really good interpretation. I really enjoyed it.

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Mind the Gap

In the time of Covid-19 we should all have an awareness of that Gap. Stay safe Jeanette and thanks for The Gap of Time....

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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I LOVE THIS BOOK

Such a wonderful adaptation of the winters tale and beautifully read! Really enjoyed. Highly recommend whether you know the winters tale or not

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    5 out of 5 stars
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fantastic version of winters tale.

Loved it. Highly recommend. My first audio book and finished it so quickly it is that good.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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What a rollercoaster!

If you could sum up The Gap of Time in three words, what would they be?

What a rollercoaster!

What did you like best about this story?

I particularly enjoyed the links to Shakespeare's 'A Winter's Tale' and also the clever resettlement of the story into the modern day. The narrators did an excellent job of performing each character. You always knew who was speaking and there was a huge amount of emotion conveyed with the words.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to any of these narrator's other performances yet.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness. What price would you pay?

Any additional comments?

I saw Jeannette Winterson speak at the Cheltenham Literary Festival about this book and I was fascinated. This is an excellent performance and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it. I often found myself sat outside work for several extra minutes just to try and get a bit further in the story. I would definitely recommend this to any Shakespeare enthusiast and to anyone who wants to explore the theme of forgiveness.

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5 people found this helpful