Snobs - Julian Fellowes Audiobook

Written by Julian Fellowes
Read by Julian Fellowes
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release date: April 30, 2010
Duration: 05:28:50

Wodehouse gets a modern twist in this brilliantly acerbic tale of snobbery and marital tomfoolery in 1990s London.

Edith Lavery, the pretty daughter of an accountant, meets gossip-column favorite Charles Broughton (Earl of Broughton and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield) at Ascot. When he proposes and she accepts, does she really love him, or is she merely dazzled by his title and money?

Even after she is married, Edith is snubbed and humiliated at every turn (in the slyest, politest possible way, of course), until she moves out in a huff with her married lover, Simon Russell, an actor/ego-on-legs who is eating up the publicity that comes with being seen with a countess and eager for this entrée into society (he doesn’t realize Edith has been cast into the societal dung heap). To Edith’s consternation, the glittering world of theater turns out to be just as small-minded and dull as that of society,

In a tale that mixes contemporary Jane Austen with the brilliant social commentary of Gosford Park, Julian Fellowes chronicles Edith’s rise and fall with twists and turns aplenty. Through the eyes of his narrator, a journeyman actor who manages to negotiate the choppy waters of snobbery and excess as he moves between the upper and middle classes, in SNOBS Fellowes gives us a delicious comedy of manners to rival Oscar Wilde at his wittiest.

When the social-climbing Edith Lavery marries the slightly boring Lord Charles Broughton, all hell breaks loose in 1990s’ London high society, particularly when Edith’s ensuing boredom pushes her into the arms of another man. Even better than Fellowes’s wicked wit, entertaining plot, and superb characters is his dead-on reading of his own work. In his care, the characters leap from the page in all their glory–airing the petty complaints and dirty laundry of the consummately snobbish. Fellowes employs subtle vocal changes for each character, nailing their snootiness and whining. Told in the first person by a likable narrator orbiting the fringes of British society, the story paints a silly but sharp and comic portrait of the upper class. The production ends with an interview of Fellowes–the perfect icing on this indulgent cake. H.L.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2005