The Golden Ass - Apuleius, E. J. Kenney

Category: Adults, Classic, Literature
Language: English
Keywords: Roman Society Satire

Written by Apuleius, E. J. Kenney
Read by David Timson
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
Release Date: 27-06-17
Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Translation copyright, E.J. Kenney

In this hapless state I looked myself over and saw that I was now no bird, but an ass….”

In this ancient picaresque adventure, Lucius, an insatiably curious young man, finds himself transformed into a donkey after his fascination with black magic and witchcraft goes awry. While trapped in his new body, he becomes the property of thieves, farmers, cooks, soldiers, and priests, and observes the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Imperial Roman society. The Golden Ass is considered the only novel to survive the Roman period, and the earliest novel to survive complete in the Western literary tradition. It is brimming with slapstick humor and sexual escapades, and foreshadows later works by Boccaccio, Rabelais, Cervantes, and Chaucer, upon whom it was a direct influence.

A review…”
Not Wiser…But Very Well Informed
That’s how Lucius, our hero, describes himself near the end of his odyssey in an ass’ shape. And the same can be said of anyone who has tagged along with him. In the course of this picaresque pastiche, we encounter all levels of humanity in the Greco-Roman world. Starting with the likeable rogue who serves as our narrator, we meet concupiscent wives, corrupt priests, malevolent witches, rapacious landlords, seduce-able servants, tight-fisted millionaires, profligate millionaires, even a legionary unable to defend himself from the fists of a poor old gardener. In his ass’ guise Lucius discovers that animals can be just as bad. C. S. Lewis wrote of, “…the peculiar quality of the [Golden Ass], that strange compound of picaresque novel, horror-comic mystagogue’s tract, pornography and stylistic experiment”, and he was about right.”