Metamorphosis or The Golden Ass


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

(3.7 stars; 19 reviews)

The Metamorphosis, also known as The Golden Ass, is one of the very few novels of the Ancient World that survived to our days; one of the two novels of Roman Literature that we can still read; and the only one preserved in its entirety (the other one being the extremely fragmentary Satyricon).

The story of the Metamorphosis, the tale of a man turned into a donkey that goes through many adventures to become a man again, inspired many other similar ones later on. However, more than just the plot, the style of the Golden Ass also made it famous.

Considered one of the precursors of the picaresque novel, The Metamorphosis was written in a language that can be humorous and energetic, while telling the misadventures of the credulous and curious main character, but also powerfully poetic, in moments such as in the episode of Cupid and Psyche, one of the most famous parts of this book, and of Latin literature as a whole. (Summary by Leni) (9 hr 55 min)

Chapters

00 - Introduction 21:24 Read by Leni
01 - Chapter 1, Part 1 23:47 Read by Dee Wykoff
02 - Chapter 1, Part 2 21:57 Read by Shiromi
03 - Chapter 2, Part 1 27:03 Read by hefyd
04 - Chapter 2, Part 2 25:47 Read by hefyd
05 - Chapter 3, Part 1 20:23 Read by hefyd
06 - Chapter 3, Part 2 22:58 Read by Ted Garvin
07 - Chapter 4, Part 1 27:44 Read by Ted Garvin
08 - Chapter 4, Part 2 26:04 Read by ljsei
09 - Chapter 5, Part 1 22:14 Read by Ted Garvin
10 - Chapter 5, Part 2 24:44 Read by ontheroad
11 - Chapter 6, Part 1 23:08 Read by ontheroad
12 - Chapter 6, Part 2 28:10 Read by ontheroad
13 - Chapter 7, Part 1 19:07 Read by Ted Garvin
14 - Chapter 7, Part 2 23:24 Read by Ted Garvin
15 - Chapter 8, Part 1 30:11 Read by Anna Simon
16 - Chapter 8, Part 2 23:06 Read by Anna Simon
17 - Chapter 9, Part 1 35:44 Read by Thomas A. Copeland
18 - Chapter 9, Part 2 39:38 Read by Thomas A. Copeland
19 - Chapter 10, Part 1 25:20 Read by Tim Ferreira
20 - Chapter 10, Part 2 25:52 Read by Tim Ferreira
21 - Chapter 11, Part 1 27:02 Read by Todd Ulbrich
22 - Chapter 11, Part 2 30:23 Read by Todd Ulbrich

Reviews


(1 stars)

Several of the readers are just horrible. The bad readers should be obvious to anyone who listens to the entire book especially the middle sections. It's a good book and should be redone with good readers.

Variable recording quality


(3 stars)

The story is great. The translation is florid. The recordings are quite variable in quality, unfortunately.

mostly good sounf


(3 stars)

mostly good readers. some amazing. a few too fast or bad recording quality