Audiobook14 hours
Beau Geste
Written by Percival Wren
Narrated by David Case
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
A column of French Legionnaires finds one of their fortresses manned by dead men. It looks like the sergeant was killed by one of his own troops. Who could have done it?
A flashback then unravels the mystery of the three English Geste brothers. The brothers, orphaned early in life, are raised by an aunt. Their raucous youths are filled with the literature of adventure and ritualized horseplay centered around these myths and legends. So when the family's prized Blue Water sapphire turns up missing, each of the young men confesses to being the thief in order to protect the others, and one by one they head off to join the French Foreign Legion. The three brothers meet up in the deserts of Africa, where they fall under the command of the malevolent Sergeant Lejaune. Not content to merely be a martinet, Lejaune sets his sights on stealing the jewel, which rumor holds to be in the brothers' possession. Meanwhile, the unruly troops he commands are planning a mutiny, and the marauding Tauregs pin this badly outnumbered and bitterly divided unit of Legionnaires at Fort Zinderneuf. The ensuing drama plays itself out as the French forces battle overwhelming odds. Ultimately, only a handful of men survive to discover the truth behind the Blue Water's disappearance.
A classic, rip-roaring tale of adventure!
A flashback then unravels the mystery of the three English Geste brothers. The brothers, orphaned early in life, are raised by an aunt. Their raucous youths are filled with the literature of adventure and ritualized horseplay centered around these myths and legends. So when the family's prized Blue Water sapphire turns up missing, each of the young men confesses to being the thief in order to protect the others, and one by one they head off to join the French Foreign Legion. The three brothers meet up in the deserts of Africa, where they fall under the command of the malevolent Sergeant Lejaune. Not content to merely be a martinet, Lejaune sets his sights on stealing the jewel, which rumor holds to be in the brothers' possession. Meanwhile, the unruly troops he commands are planning a mutiny, and the marauding Tauregs pin this badly outnumbered and bitterly divided unit of Legionnaires at Fort Zinderneuf. The ensuing drama plays itself out as the French forces battle overwhelming odds. Ultimately, only a handful of men survive to discover the truth behind the Blue Water's disappearance.
A classic, rip-roaring tale of adventure!
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Reviews for Beau Geste
Rating: 3.9525316455696204 out of 5 stars
4/5
158 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I didn't know what to expect when I started this but it was amazing. Page-turning, edge of your seat, adventure the whole way. I can't wait to read the sequels!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The kind of book Kipling would have written if he had only been interested in telling of adventures. The British boys are very British, and they kill a lot of Arabs with their superior technology. The framing narrative, a long conversation between two officers, is very like Kipling, and quite entertaining as the mannerisms of the British and the French officers are contrasted. The anti-semitism is especially baroque. That the British boys choose to learn Arabic is typical.The main part of the book is a first person narrative, an exciting story, rich with detail, and with an ironic twist at the end.The book fits the era well, Sabatini's "Scaramouche" had been published just a few years earlier.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This story had me hooked right from the beginning. I was very intrigued by the boyhood dream becoming reality. Though it is not the happiest of endings, it is a reminder that life is not a game. We need to be ready for whatever it may bring.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed reading several of Wren's French Foreign Legion stories when young. I actually liked the short stores best, but this first caught my interest, about English gentlemen who join the Foreign Legion due to a misunderstanding, as I recall. This furnishes the "Fort Zinderneuf" setting in which Snoopy of Peanuts also serves.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good brothers read as brothers are a key part of this story. Set in times past when communication was hard and soldiers were less part of a team and more following orders from the mad and powerful. There is a great puzzle in this story which is gripping and entertaining. I expect that when it was first published, it pleased the establishment as it heralds soldiers honesty and their following of military rules. I expect it was also a favourite amongst soldiers posted far from home too. There is lots of rich description and many interesting characters.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The French Foreign Legion. We have all heard about these men. The heroics and horrors of being among them. This is a work of fiction but it definitely builds the legend. Makes a young boy want to run of and join and and older man fear he's fate if forced to join.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What a grand adventure this is! Heroes don't get any more noble, courageous, resourceful, and staunch than the Geste bros. Chock-full of feats of derring-do in exotic locations and intensely satisfying in a Victorian, Boy's Life, silent-film kind of way. I can completely understand how good British boys bred on literature like this would grow up yearning for military glory and the chance to expand the glorious British Empire to the most dismal and dangerous corners of the world, concerned only that - when their time was up and they eventually did "pop off" (an aphorism favored by the Geste bros, by the way) - they would do so with their jaws nobly clenched and brave witticisms fading on their dying lips. A little long in places but fun, fun, fun!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5High adventure of the very best sort; the kind that morphs from ghost story to Victorian mystery, to Foreign Legion derring-do. So absorbing that I missed my bus as it came and went while I sat on the bench turning pages in a wicked October wind. At the time, the breathtaking anti-semitism didn't bother me as much as it would today, but I was 13 and my father's son.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Can't go wrong here
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I think the book suffers from people having seen the movie first. If you don't know what's happening, it's very suspenseful with a lot of red herrings. If you just want to relive the movie, the beginning can be quite dull. Still the story is a perfect medieval romance set in a modern setting -- Unrequited love, brother love, war, adventure -- what more could you ask for?
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The story is quite old fashioned, but I enjoyed the read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the middle of the Sahara sits a fort manned by dead men. Another man is lying in the middle of the fort, a letter of confession for an old jewel robbery in his pocket.With perhaps the most intriguing first chapter in the English language, Beau Geste, a tale of adventure, mystery, and honour in the French Foreign Legion kicks off to a great start. Take three brothers, a sadistic commanding officer, a fabulous sapphire, and the ever-present, watchful Arab enemy, combine and bake under the Saharan sun for a few suspenseful months, and you get this classic yarn.