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    Sophie's Choice
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    Sophie's Choice
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    Sophie's Choice
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Sophie's Choice

    Written by William Styron

    Narrated by Norman Snow

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

    "[One morning] in the early spring, I woke up with the remembrance of a girl I'd once known, Sophie. It was a very vivid half-dream, half-revelation, and all of a sudden I realized that hers was a story I had to tell." That very day, William Styron began writing the first chapter of Sophie's Choice.

    First published in 1979, this complex and ambitious novel opens with Stingo, a young southerner, journeying north in 1947 to become a writer. It leads us into his intellectual and emotional entanglement with his neighbors in a Brooklyn rooming house: Nathan, a tortured, brilliant Jew, and his lover, Sophie, a beautiful Polish woman whose wrist bears the grim tattoo of a concentration camp...and whose past is strewn with death that she alone survived.

    "Sophie's Choice is a passionate, courageous book...a philosophical novel on the most important subject of the twentieth century," said novelist and critic John Gardner in The New York Times Book Review. "One of the reasons Styron succeeds so well in Sophie's Choice is that, like Shakespeare (I think the comparison is not too grand), Styron knows how to cut away from the darkness of his material, so that when he turns to it again it strikes with increasing force....Sophie's Choice is a thriller of the highest order, all the more thrilling for the fact that the dark, gloomy secrets we are unearthing one by one--sorting through lies and terrible misunderstandings like a hand groping for a golden nugget in a rattlesnake's nest--may be authentic secrets of history and our own human nature."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 6, 2007
    ISBN9780739354469
    Author

    William Styron

    William Styron (1925–2006), born in Newport News, Virginia, was one of the greatest American writers of his generation. Styron published his first book, Lie Down in Darkness, at age twenty-six and went on to write such influential works as the controversial and Pulitzer Prize–winning The Confessions of Nat Turner and the international bestseller Sophie’s Choice.

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    Reviews for Sophie's Choice

    4/5

    1,178 ratings33 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A young, lonely, aspiring author meets Sophie and Nathan while trying to write the great American novel. Caught in the venom of Nathan's mental illness and Sophie deep sorrow, Stingo finds himself romantically attracted to Sophie and her mysterious past and To Nathan with his charismatic ways. (At times I didn't really appreciate the side tracks the author often took. It took me a while to read this, partly because of the horror of Sophie's life and partly because of these tangents.)
    • 3/5
      Overwritten and self-indulgent, but the parts about the Holocaust were interesting. Wish I could believe there was some irony in the portrayal of the young "genius" author, Stingo, but sadly I could not. I did learn quite a bit about the plight of the Poles in WWII.
    • 5/5
      LOVE this book. A classic you will never forget.
    • 2/5
      Story wise I thought this was great, although heartbreaking. Sophie's back story was extremely engaging, I couldn't wait to hear more but most of the present part of story was tedious. A large part of the problem was how wordy the prose was, some sections seemed to go on forever and once I got to the end of them I was left thinking, so what was the point of all that? The other thing that really got on my nerves was the inclusion of Stingo's constant preoccupation with sex. Yes, it ties in with one of the final scenes but he could have done that without using so many pages ... actually chapters. Not a book I'm going to recommend to my friends and family.
    • 4/5
      I expected more of this book. It was beautifully written, but I felt let down at the end. The story is involving and I certainly enjoyed getting to know the characters, but it left me feeling a bit empty at the conclusion.Sophie is a very sympathetic character and I felt her pain - Styron is a master of nuance and emotion, no question. I think I was put off by the narrator, Stingo, actually. I found him tedious and more than a bit self-involved and even towards the end of the book when he is trying to save Sophie, he is really doing it for his own ends. Nathan, Sophie's lover, was larger than life and whilst he was a threatening character, I liked him more than Stingo. This could, of course, say more about my penchant for villains than it says about the characters...The accounts of life in the concentration camps was searing and did not sugar coat anything. The arbitrary nature of the decisions some of the commandants and their minions made were captured well. This was the writing I enjoyed most in the book, not the content per se, but the mastery and economy of language. Styron is rightfully in a class of his own there.My biggest gripe is that when the "choice" finally came, I was alread losing interest because of Stingo's rambling on so many tangents. That is the biggest fault of this novel for me - too much wandering. It's like Styron thought he needed to fill some more pages so the book looked longer or something.At least now I can say I have read it.
    • 5/5
      Styron's luminous writing guides readers through very dark subject matter: alcoholism, abuse, violence, war, and the Holocaust. His world is richly enveloping, his characters larger than the paper they inhabit. I never saw the movie made from this book, and am I glad I didn't. I don't see how any film adaptation could do justice. If you love language and complexly woven novels, you must read this book. Styron is often cited as the writer of The Confessions of Nat Turner, but I think he never exceeded Sophie's Choice.
    • 1/5
      I hate this book. I tried for over 3 months to swallow this slop and made it to page 96. Styron's writing is horrid! It takes him a paragraph to say a sentence, several pages to make a point. It's ridiculous. The vocabulary diarrhea is unappealing. I don't even know where the plot was going. So, I gave up. I'm glad I never had to read this for any classes.
    • 5/5
      One of the most well-written book I've read to date, Sophie's Choice is like a Beethoven symphony - perhaps Pastorale was in Styron's mind while he wrote the novel, as that title came up more than once as I recall - and one needs to take care reading it to comprehend how truly remarkable this book is.I thought, through most of the pages, that the choice in Sophie's Choice refers to the fact that Sophie tangles with two men in her life and she has a choice to make. Of course, I was fooled through 500 plus pages of wading through heavy but incredibly beautiful and stunning prose until that powerful and shocking revelation. I did find the book thick at times, especially through the middle, but I was drawn deeply to Styron's mastery of words. I found myself wanting to learn from the work, not just its wealth of fresh words, but the shrewdness in the way Styron sees and describes things, his approach, and everything else about his process as a writer, which he so cleverly encapsulates in Stingo's character.I loved the many references to classical music and literature. It's not easy to finish, but it's an important book to read and I believe it's one of the best books I've read.
    • 5/5
      My first umambiguous thought is that I really, really liked this book. And I almost feel guilty saying that, because the subject matter was so heavy and sad, that it feels wrong to say that I enjoyed reading it. Yes, there were some parts that were very sad, and shocking, and horrible, but Styron kept you on your toes as a reader, waiting until the very end to find out the truth about Sophie and Nathan, revealing things piece by piece, getting to the very core of his characters and their experiences. The characters were all multi-dimensional and easy to sympathize with, even Nathan, once I learned that he was psychotic and on drugs and couldn't really help his horrible behavior. They were all characters that came from broken places. The writing was beautiful and I was sucked in from page one.I haven't read any books on the Holocaust, and in fact on our family vacation to Washington, DC last month, actively campaigned to skip the Holocaust Museum, knowing how gut-wrenching it would be to see, or even learn about any of that. Now I am sorry I missed it. I had no idea that the Holocaust affected so many people of all ages, and not all of them Jewish or German.What I found most interesting at many times during the book was how Styron would take Nazi characters like Hoss, his daughter Emmi, or the doctor on the platform, reveal them one moment as unfeeling automatons who believed and did as they were commanded, but then in the next paragraph would show something of their humanity, showing that even inside terrible people is something human we can relate to. Everyone in the book had a dirty secret or guilt that they were trying to live with, whether they were Nazi or not. In the end, we're all human and imperfect.I am reading my way through the Modern Library's Top 100 Board's books, and out of Books 100-96, it was the only one so far that I sank into and never wanted to resurface. Totally recommended.
    • 5/5
      I read this (sort of) once before, in 1985 after seeing the movie. I remember I was traveling on a plane from New Mexico (where I lived at the time) to Seattle (to visit family). I had the book on the plane & had been reading it, but having a hard time with it & when I left the plane I left the book without finishing it. Leaving a book behind is extremely unusual for me - I never go anywhere without a book & I just about always finish just about everything. I decided that I just wasn't meant to read this book if I'd left it behind. I was 22. I had equal trouble with Lie Down in Darkness - just couldn't get through it. I loved his book on his own struggles with depression - Darkness Visible - I thought it was one of the truest pieces of writing about depression that I had ever read. I figured eventually I'd get back to his fiction.I picked up Sophie's Choice again as part of a reading challenge - to read some American prize winning books & compare them. I'm glad I did. This one won the National Book Award. Styron can write & he can tell a story - painful though it may be. I loved the craft of this book, the interplay of language & the brick-by-brick-by-word-by-word deftness of his creations - Stingo, Sophie, & Nathan & long ago far away Brooklyn.As much a meditation on his younger days as a fledgling writer as it is a Holocaust story, this novel is also a Southerner's rumination on what it means to be Southern, to be liberal, to have lived through the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis & to see similar horrors perpetrated in your home (see also, slavery & lynchings). There are aspects of this book that remind me very clearly of North Toward Home - Willie Morris' wonderful memoir about being a Southerner among Northern intellectuals. Styron beautifully captures Stingo's naivete & self-conscious youth as he struggles with his first novel.Equally well-drawn are the doomed Nathan & Sophie - their mutual histories of madness & despair intertwined in fatal & beautiful ways. It is worth remembering that more than Europe's Jews were caught up in the Nazi insanity - Sophie's story is just one of many.This is a difficult, painful & ultimately worthwhile novel. Read it - you won't regret it.
    • 5/5
      It's been a long time since I've read this novel, but I'm still can remember the powerful emotions I felt reading this story of a Polish survivor of the Holocaust and a young man from the South who befriend one another in Brooklyn in the late 1940's. It's both laugh out loud funny and incredibly depressing, tragic yet inspiring.
    • 5/5
      What a great book! I learned a lot about the WW II era from this book. It provided me with a new perspective on the Holocaust.
    • 4/5
      Just as the holocaust was the ultimate example of cruelty that goes beyond imagining, this novel demonstrates the strength of the human spirit to survive despite having undergone the most vicious evil the world has ever known. The cruelty that Sophie has experienced is overwhelming in its magnitude, and her choice to live means a lifetime of self recrimination. Styron's own bouts with depression are obvious "drivers" of the plot and its characters. If you finish this book with your heart intact, read it again. There is indomitable strength and hope in Sophie that will make all of us re-examine our own darkest hours.
    • 5/5
      Incredible novel of the war, and how it forces choices that are unimaginable. Beautiful prose!
    • 5/5
      Well plotted, great characters. I read it in Germany and wrote Styron a letter. Lo and behold, he wrote back--on a note dated Christmas Day 1980. A very kind gesture.
    • 5/5
      When Stingo moves to New York he meets Sophie and Nathan. Throughout his time there, Sophie starts to tell him her story. This is a great and moving book about how even though the war technically ends, its effects are longstanding and inescapable.
    • 4/5
      Styron, William. Sophie's Choice. Vintage International, New York, 1976. A sad story, beautifully told. This is a book that makes you think about the nature of evil and the effect it has on the lives of ordinary people. Some things to ponder when reading, or re-reading, this book. How unreliable a narrator is Sophie? How much can we believe about her story and character? Second, why is there so much sex in the book? It seems completely extraneous and distracting. What purpose does it serve in the story? These are the questions that occur to me; I haven't taken the time to think up satisfactory answers. When I reread the novel, that's what I'll do.
    • 5/5
      Pray you never have to make Sophie's Choice.
    • 5/5
      I'd like to read this book again. If I can take it......
    • 2/5
      Poor - a superficial overview of the main men in philisophy
    • 5/5
      This was the fifty-second book I’ve read since February, 2017, and it was far and away the best. Pathos without end, it’s the story of three friends living in Brooklyn soon after World War II. Stingo, an aspiring author, moves into a boarding house where he meets and becomes fast friends with Sophie and her boyfriend, Nathan. Sophie is a survivor of the horrors of Auschwitz, and much of the story is told as she tells Stingo about her time in Poland before the war, then the horror of the camp. The other main storyline is the relationship between Sophie and Nathan, and how Stingo becomes their friend. It’s not only the best novel I’ve read this year, it is now an all-time favorite. You may need tissue.
      Highest recommendation!

      The movie was superb, the book was even better.
    • 5/5
      This was the fifty-second book I’ve read since February, 2017, and it was far and away the best. Pathos without end, it’s the story of three friends living in Brooklyn soon after World War II. Stingo, an aspiring author, moves into a boarding house where he meets and becomes fast friends with Sophie and her boyfriend, Nathan. Sophie is a survivor of the horrors of Auschwitz, and much of the story is told as she tells Stingo about her time in Poland before the war, then the horror of the camp. The other main storyline is the relationship between Sophie and Nathan, and how Stingo becomes their friend. It’s not only the best novel I’ve read this year, it is now an all-time favorite. You may need tissue.
      Highest recommendation!

      The movie was superb, the book was even better.
    • 5/5
      Three stories in one--the coming of age story of a Southern young man, the tragic arc of a brilliant Jew, and the story of Sophie and her life as a Pole during and after WWII. Beautifully written and Sophie's choice will hit you like a punch to the stomach.
    • 5/5
      Sophie's choice dooms her, but she manages to shine. A truly luminous novel. How does a person live with so much about the past constantly haunting their lives?
    • 4/5
      Although the movie is compelling the old truism wins out, the book is better. Where the movie leaves gaps the book fills them in. All the main plot points are there just filled with more gravitas. The look into Holocaust is especially gripping and its effect on Sophie heartbreaking. While the story is well told the writing is flat at times and the ending is a little contrived.
    • 5/5
      Extremely disturbing. A mother has to choose freedom for one of her two children. How does she choose? Horrifying. WW II
    • 5/5
      I’m not going to write much of a review here as I don’t want to ruin the book for the (very) few folks who haven’t read it. I will say it is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. Styron expertly weaves different strands of the story into a whole more efficiently and seamlessly than almost anyone I can think of.

      The message of the book is not particularly subtle, nor should it be given the subject matter. It almost requires you to realize within the first few pages what he is getting at in order to understand and appreciate the rest of the story. So don’t go looking for a lot of hidden meaning. If you received an adequate history education in high school, and paid attention during sections on the Holocaust and the Civil War, you won’t have any trouble. However, if you are one of those folks who were taught the Civil War was not about slavery, but about state’s rights or northern aggression, or some other lost cause nonsense, then you may find yourself wondering what the heck Styron is getting at.

      The only complaint I have, and I hesitate to mention it, is the way sex was portrayed in the book. First, there is a lot of it. I have no trouble with that. But the way Styron writes these scenes, I just could not help but think I was reading the script from a pornographic movie with pretensions of seriousness. Some of it was laugh out loud weird.

      Also, after reading the book I decided to watch the movie. Bad, bad, bad…but a topic for another day!
    • 4/5
      When I read and reviewed Set This House on Fire at the end of last March, I suggested I wouldn’t abandon Styron until I’d given Sophie’s Choice a fair chance.

      I just have.

      In spite of the obvious appeal of this novel — not to mention the brilliant choice of Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol to play the principal characters in its cinematic interpretation — I found some of the same flaws in it that I’d found in Set This House on Fire.

      To quote from my previous review: “there are certainly moments and entire passages that let a reader understand why Styron has the reputation he has. But these are too few and far between.”

      Styron is a stylist — and a consummate one. He’s also a consummate story-teller. But where is his editor? There are moments when Sophie sounds authentically like the non-native English speaker she is. But then, there are others when Styron would seem to have forgotten whose mouth he’s in.

      But let’s give the man his due. The scene from which this novel takes its title is even more gut-wrenching than Meryl Streep’s portrayal of it on the silver screen. And the prose leading up to it had already put me in a distinctly apocalyptic mood — this, although I was reading it on a quiet grassy knoll on the second day of a resplendent summer.

      William Styron can write; make no mistake about it. He just needs to rein in a bit when he’s on a roll. He (or a good editor) could’ve done away with a hundred pages of this novel — and it would’ve been perfect.

      Why, then, only four stars when I might give five to a far less well-known, far less practiced writer? Because I hold writers like William Styron to a higher standard.

      RRB
      6/23/13
      Brooklyn, NY
    • 4/5
      This is going to be one of those hard to forget books. Having never seen the movie that was made from this book, I have nothing to compare it to. The book does start out a trifle slow, but rapidly gains steam & turns into a story that keeps you turning page by painful page.This is the story of Stingo, a 22 year old former Marine with aspirations of being a writer, who moves to New York City to work at a major publishing house. When he loses his job there, he moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn, to a boarding house nicknamed The Pink Palace, run by a fairly liberal Jewish lady. It's there he meets Nathan & Sophie, a pair of lovers that are just as tragic as they are mismatched. Nathan is a well to do Jew, brilliant, possibly genius level, that goes off the rails once in a while & becomes frighteningly abusive. Sophie is a struggling to make ends meet, Catholic survivor of Auschwitz & Birkenau.Her story is central to the book, & as the story goes along, we learn more of her past, first through lies that she tells in order to avoid telling Stingo the horrible truths about what she went through, then, later, she recants the lies & tells him the unvarnished, ugly truths.The book is mesmerizing, & you can't help but feel terribly sorry for Sophie, & in a way for Stingo, who was hopelessly in love with her.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed this, and although I found the characters to be highly unlikable, I still found myself enjoying the prose, the feeling of Brooklyn in 1949 and the historical tidbits scattered throughout.