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False Dawn

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False Dawn

By: Edith Wharton
Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
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The pathetic but perceptive Lewis Raycie is sent on a grand tour of Europe with instructions to collect great art. He returns with Italian paintings not yet recognized in America as Renaissance masterpieces. Appalled, his father disinherits him. Only after Lewis's death is the collection realized for its true value.(P)2000 The Audio Partners Publishing Corp. Classics Italy

Critic reviews

"This audio novella is a gem. The force and precision of Wharton's language are brought vividly to life by Jacobi, an actor whose beautiful voice you recognize only for an instant before you both submerge in the story. Wharton doesn't waste a word, or even a pause, and I had to hear the first cassette twice before I understood exactly who was doing what to whom. Which is not a criticism, since I relished the second listening as I had the first. The wrenching conclusion will break your heart and then clear your head. Edith Wharton died in 1937, but this classic is evergreen." (AudioFile)

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A very rich but low class American sends his son to europe to buy "great art" so his father can open a museum that will aggrandize the family in society. The son, who has more taste than sense, goes to Europe and rather than buying the obvious respected stuff (should be noted that historically most of the "great" painters of that age have mostly been forgotten) and instead found unknown but brilliantly talented artists whose works could be bought at half the price and brought those home. His father, mortified, disowns him. Anyone who know the story of the Art Institute of Chicago -- regularly ranked as one of the top 5 art collections in the world, is sort of familiar with the story. Most of the very best works of the top impressionists are in Chicago, not france, because the french rejected the art movement and some art professor from Chicago picked them up for like nothing and brought them to the school of art in Chicago (the Museum is technically the library of the school, which is STILL there, at the back of the museum) for the students to study. Wharton is basically doing a commentary on how rich Americans wanted to prove themselves as equal to European aristocracy but had no real taste.

A son with taste before his time

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