REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

Burke's scathing early attack on the French Revolution, and on the British who admired it, is a long essay cum rant published in 1790, a complex polemic taking in politics, economics, and history. Matt Addis narrates in a slightly sharp-edged voice that is highly articulate and clear and that gives fitting aural shape to Burke's sometimes complicated sentences. Addis's careful weighing of words and phrases helps make them clear as can be, but listeners may still have trouble getting the sense of every eighteenth-century turn of phrase; a slightly slower pace might have helped. His tone is urbane and polished, but more emotion--anger, sarcasm, scorn--might occasionally have better fit Burke's language. Still, this is a remarkably intelligent, flawlessly accurate performance of a demanding text, a real tour de force. W.M. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2021]