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Little: A Novel
Unavailable
Little: A Novel
Unavailable
Little: A Novel
Audiobook14 hours

Little: A Novel

Written by Edward Carey

Narrated by Jayne Entwistle

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.

In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.

In the tradition of Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Edward Carey's Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel—a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.

Editor's Note

Macabre reimagining…

Wax and words take beautiful shape in this enchanting, macabre reimagining of the famous Madame Tussaud’s life. Everything from wax sculptures to the wax-working tools is brought to life in this expertly crafted tale.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 23, 2018
ISBN9780525640639
Unavailable
Little: A Novel
Author

Edward Carey

EDWARD CAREY is a playwright, a novelist and an illustrator. He has worked in theatre in the UK, Lithuania and Romania and with a shadow-puppet master in Malaysia. He has written two illustrated novels for adults, Observatory Mansions and Alva & Irva, both of which have been translated into many languages. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he wrote the Iremonger Trilogy because he missed feeling cold and gloomy. WEB: www.edwardcareyauthor.com TWITTER: https://twitter.com/edwardcarey70

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Reviews for Little

Rating: 4.179015802469135 out of 5 stars
4/5

81 ratings7 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Even though I love London, I've always thought of Madame Tussaud's as a gimmick. This novelization of the life of the real Madame Tussaud was fascinating, and made me appreciate the original significance of her work. Carey, too, is a master at writing clever turns of phrases.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Simply put, the audiobook version of Edward Carey’s Little: A Novel, as read by the remarkable Jayne Entwistle is an incredible experience. The plot and characters are wonderfully crafted, but I doubt I would have enjoyed the book quite as much if I had read its printed version. The novel’s narrator is Marie Grosholtz, and when we meet her the seven-year-old understands very little of the world around her. She sees, though, that she has inherited her mother’s rather prominent nose and her father’s jutting lower jaw, a combination of physical characteristics that will forever keep her from being considered an attractive woman. On top of this, Marie is so tiny that it is only a matter of time before she is forced to start answering to the nickname “Little.” Jayne Entwistle tells Marie’s story in a little girl’s voice and accent; a voice so perfectly rendered that Marie comes alive and you find yourself wanting to listen to her all day long.Marie’s story begins in 18th century Switzerland where she lives an adequate enough lifestyle with her mother and soldier father until the family’s circumstances take a sudden turn for the worse, one that leaves Marie fatherless. Desperate to find a new home for herself and her little girl, Marie’s mother jumps at the chance to become the live-in housekeeper for the eccentric Dr. Curtius in Boerne, Switzerland. Dr. Curtius, an anatomist who creates lifelike models of internal organs to be used by medical students in their studies, is so pleased to learn that the little girl is neither frightened nor sickened by the details of his life’s work that he begins to feel a kinship to her. And that turns out to be a fortunate for Marie, because when the doctor is forced to flee his home in Boerne for a fresh start in Paris, he brings Marie with him.Thus, begins the rest of the long, but seldom happy, life of little Marie Grosholtz and her rather ineffectual protector, Dr. Curtius. But what a life it will be! Before it is over, the two will witness the French Revolution to a degree much closer than both would have preferred, and Marie will spend some months in Versailles as instructor to minor royalty - where she becomes a friend of sorts to Louis XVI himself. Despite her great artistic ability and her sound business-head, Marie’s greatest talent will prove to be that she is a survivor. She is someone who manages, time after time, to overcome circumstances that would have been the end of weaker persons. But survive Marie does, and when she is finally forced to marry in order that she be able to afford to keep her wax works open, she takes the hand of François Tussaud, a civil engineer who proves not to be nearly as wealthy as he has led Marie to believe he is. But Marie, ever the survivor, thus becomes Madame Tussaud, and the rest is history. Bottom Line: Little is a fictionalized version of the life of a woman who beat all the odds to become an artist and businesswoman who is still well respected almost 260 years after her birth. Madame Tussaud’s wax museum has had many imitators over the past two centuries, but the Madame still sets the standard for the rest of them. Little Marie Grosholtz became a very big woman, and this is her story. This Dickensian novel is a treat not to be missed.(From what I understand, the printed version of Little is illustrated by some of Marie’s drawings. Despite this, I recommend that this one be experienced via its audiobook version because of the superb narration provided by Jayne Entwistle.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Told in the first person, this is a ficitonal account of the life of the person who became famous as Madame Tusaud, she of the waxwork museum. She goes through quite a life before becomming a respectable old lady. Starting life as an orphan, she becomes a servant and an oppressed servant at that. She then has a stroke of luck and becomes a servant to a member of the royal family, only with the revolution on the horizon, this turns out not to be quite the stroke of luck that it might have been. Throughout it all she is working on the wax works and their story is almost as engrossing as hers, the heads she casts and the waxworks produced go through the mill at times. She is a tool for propaganda and entertainment, but is that also appealing to the lowest of the low? It's all very immediate, being in the first person, and the story drags you onwards. It is also illustrated with images of the heads and other items described. It has certain quirks, repeated phrases appear in certain chapters as a device, which works until you notice it is a device, then it becomes mildly annoying.She goes through a lot, but comes into her own in the end. And it is the ending that, I feel, lacks something. After the detail of the preceeding chapters, her life in London is barely a postscript, how both her boys come to join her is left unsaid, it almost felt like the author had hit a page limit and had to stop. Apart from the slightly rushed ending, though, it was a good read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is not for the squeamish. Set in 18th Century France, this tells the story of Marie Tussaud whose name has become famous for realistic wax works. Marie was born small and remained unusually small throughout her life, but she was able to conquer many hardships. Becoming an orphan at an early age, she found herself living with a strange doctor who made was replicas of body parts for doctors to study. Eventually she and Dr. Curtius find themselves in Paris where they meet up with a domineering Widow Picot. Together they reconstruct a "monkey house" into an exhibition of wax figures. Marie is treated horribly by the widow although she becomes Dr. Curtius's reliable assistant, but Dr. Curtius is unwilling or unable to defend Marie or stand up to the Widow.Marie was not an attractive person but had a very distinctive nose and chin. Through circumstance, she finds herself at the Palace of Versailles and a tutor (and companion) to a princess who believes she and Marie look alike. Here Marie sleeps in a cabinet and is basically ignored although she at one time finds herself visiting with the King. Marie is eventually returned to the monkey house which has become one of Paris' main attractions. Also living at the house is a retched young man, Jacques Beauvissage, whose main interest is murderers and crime. Jacques is one of the most retched characters I have ever encountered. His life is one of horror and deprivation. As time goes on, Marie continues to work with Dr. Curtius and she achieves a sort of better life; however, the French Revolution occurs which throws the business of the exhibition into shambles. Eventually Marie and Dr. Curtius find themselves making wax heads of the many who have been killed during the revolution.Besides rich text, the novel includes drawings or sketches of the many characters or body parts. The author has an interesting and readable style and often makes long sentences of multiple ideas, but it works. I enjoyed this book in spite of some very disgusting description of body parts and human suffering. It is told with a sense of lightness and respect for all the characters. It is an interesting look at life in Paris during this time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really enjoyed this book! I am surprised that it is not more widely recognized than it is, with so few reviews, but I am often surprised that such excellent works go quite, almost virtually, unnoticed. In fact, I have come across quite a number of books here on Scribd, books which I would not otherwise have been aware of since they have not been very popularized. So, thanks SCRIBD!!

    At any rate, I knew I was going to like this book from the very first uttered word, due to the wonderful narrative voice of Jayne Entwistle, whose exceptional voice made little Little come fully alive. I loved dear sweet Little and her unusual and, yes, quite macabre story, filled with all manner of emotion and characters along the way. I was riveted! I will admit I did get somewhat lost toward the end with the various characters that were hard for me to keep straight during all the political upheaval, but that may be because I don’t have much of an interest in all that, and tend to tune it out!

    Nevertheless, this is an exceptional and wonderful story that deserves a solid 5 star ⭐️ rating, and then some!!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Whoa! I love authors who can shape the little-known facts about a historical person and shape it into a riveting story. Tiny Marie finds herself the helper of a very strange doctor in Bern who forms models of body organs from wax. As a child she and the doctor are forced to flee Austria and end up playing a part in the French Revolution. Her skill modeling the heads of wax of those who died at the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. She eventually ends up in London where she becomes famous because of her sculpting of famous characters. And now I know the rest of the story…how Madame Tussauds came to be.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What comes to mind when you hear the name - Madame Tussaud? The answer most likely will be wax museum. How did a tiny six-year-old orphan, born in the turbulent atmosphere of 18th century France, become so renowned that we know of her accomplishments today?Truth be known, even the author found contemporaneous clues hard to find; but it wasn't for the lack of trying to piece it together. He spent fifteen years searching, including actually working in France at Madame Tussaud's museum, where he gazed at will upon her original wax works that included the wax heads of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette molded from their freshly guillotined heads. The one original wax work that inspired him the most was the self-portrait Madame Tussaud made of herself.Madame Tussaud was born Anna Maria "Marie" Grosholtz in 1761. She became Madame Tussaud when she married a scumbag named Francois Tussaud and bore him two sons. But I am getting ahead of myself.Marie Grosholtz became a servant at the tender age of six-years-old. That meant she didn't have a life of her own; she was subject to the whims and orders of her employer. She was, in some ways, better off than the starving peasants living outside the towns who suffered indescribable living conditions. She remained controlled by her Master until she was incarcerated and sentenced to death during the revolt. She received a reprieve at the last minute and lived to the ripe old age of 89 years-old.Marie Grosholtz was abnormally small at birth and unfortunately inherited her mother's out-sized proboscis and her father's cup hook chin. By adulthood, she was four feet and smidge tall. This small woman looked like a child with a "Punch and Judy" face.Marie's father died from a war injury when she was very young. Her mother, a destitute widow with a tiny child, became a reluctant housekeeper for an eccentric and reclusive doctor whose specialty was crafting anatomically accurate wax models from body parts for medical students. Marie's mother, grieving and morbidly depressed by circumstances, committed suicide leaving six-year-old Marie, nicknamed Little, in the care of the unorthodox Doctor Philippe Curtius. Curtius would never have won "parent of the year", but in his own way, he set up Marie for success in the future by training her in the art plaster casting and wax modeling. Together they expanded his trade from body parts to wax face masks, and later, full-head "portraits".The pair moved to Paris where Doctor Curtius hoped to fill his collection with the powerful and famous. Curtius rented space in the home of a seamstress, the Widow Picot, a repugnant character interested only in her own wellbeing. She was so repelled by the sight of Marie that she forced her to live in a barely habitable part of the kitchen. Not once in the ensuing years did the cowardly Curtius take his tiny protege's side. The weak-kneed simp, played for a fool by Picot, was kowtowed into giving her control over his collection of disembodied wax heads. Undaunted, the curious and inquisitive, Little, managed to keep an upbeat attitude and found ways to stay useful and involved in the wax business and to be near Curtius.The crafty Picot, seizing the opportunity to use her ingenuity, brought the wax models to life with clothing and staging them in an appropriate setting. The public lined up in droves to view the death masks of murderers and the provocative faces of the famous. The income poured in enriching everyone... except Marie.Marie's life changed when Princess Elizabeth, sister of King Louis XVI, made an appearance in the museum. The spoiled princess, herself an ugly duckling, took a shine to Marie and invited her to Versailles. Widow Picot and Doctor Curtius were not in a position to refuse the Princess. Once at the palace, Marie was showered with endearments and soon found herself sharing secrets and private time with the Princess. When it is learned that Marie was skilled in the new technique of plaster casting and wax modeling, she had a steady line of the famous and rich interested in creating a likeness of themselves. Sadly, over the years, Marie made the mistake of interpreting attention for affection; she was still a servant, the change just geography.The years passed. As the atmosphere outside the palace became more heated, the Monarchy sensed their subjects were ready to revolt and feared for their lives. Marie was abruptly returned to Widow Picot's home, where things there had changed as well. The Royals weren't the only people fearful for their lives. The angry crowds were targeting anyone better off or successful.The world in Paris turned bloody and brutal. Bodies lined the streets. Eager crowds gathered round the guillotine to watch the daily beheadings. The jails were filled with the guilty and innocent alike; Widow Picot and Marie among them. It was truly hell on earth. Imprisoned in a tower, Marie found the strength of character to look beyond her own needs to provide care and compassion for the sickly Widow; throwing aside any bad history between them. I found myself sad when the bewildered and failing Widow Picot's name appeared on the list to be executed.Marie was freed from jail through intersession of an old friend in exchange for the grisly task of making death wax models of the newly executed that included people that she knew intimately from Versailles.During this turbulent time, a dying Doctor Curtius, found his way home to unexpectedly find Marie there. She cared for him to his death, re-establishing the bond they had long before moving to Paris."My master's lawyer was the person who told me that there was a will, and the details written therein. 'Everything to one person', he said, "to you." And with that news, Marie, once again, stoically, picked up the pieces and became Madame Tussaud. This time she achieved her freedom and thrived. Raising that mighty chin, she was never to be under anyone's control again.

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