Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Trawl

By: B. S. Johnson
Narrated by: Piers Hampton
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde, he became famous for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his unique ways of putting them into practice.

Convinced that 'telling stories is telling lies' and that he should write about 'nothing else but what happens to me', Johnson produced Trawl. The novel describes, in the first person, a three-week voyage aboard a deep-sea fishing trawler in the Barents Sea, not unlike the one Johnson undertook in preparation to write the book.

Isolating himself from the world he knows, as well as from the ship's crew, the narrator reflects on past events and relationships, hoping for some kind of redemption. This convincingly authentic and harrowing attempt to get to the heart of the human condition is one of Johnson's finest works.

©1966 B. S. Johnson (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
Fiction Literary Fiction
Show More Show Less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Trawl

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for S D Bucknell

Piers Morgan

Just beautifully read, the voice so close to your ear gets inside your head, soothing, wistful, troubled as Johnson was troubled by the “I” that preoccupied him, haunted him, made him laugh and made him go on until he couldn’t go on.
The reading reminds me of Patrick Magee performing Krapp’s Last Tape. So resonant, heartbreaking, quietly magnificent.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!