• The Persistence of Vision

  • By: John Varley
  • Narrated by: Peter Ganim
  • Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Release date: 09-18-08
  • Language: English
  • Publisher: Audible Studios
  • 4 out of 5 stars 3.8 (95 ratings)

Regular price: $9.95

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Publisher's Summary

On the surface, this Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic is about a drifter who comes to stay in a New Mexico commune founded by a group of deaf-blind people. But beneath the story, author John Varley examines deep, universal issues. What is the nature of communication? What does an individual gain - or lose - by subsuming himself to the whole? Can an outsider ever truly "belong"?Varley says that he has had more response to this story than anything he has ever written, that some readers have even told him it changed their lives. Listening to The Persistence of Vision, it is easy to understand why.
©1978 Mercury Press, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.
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Critic Reviews



Hugo Award, Best Novella, 1979
Nebula Award, Best Novella, 1978
All-Time Best Novellas (Locus Magazine)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful
5 out of 5 stars
By Kindle Customer on 12-03-08

Don't think you like Sci-Fi? Try this one!

Great science fiction writers are plagued by pigeon-holing. I mean, there's just as much good writing and deep character development in the best sci-fi as there is in so-called "mainstream" fiction. John Varley's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella is a perfect case in point.

Yes, Varley has created a mini-society - a cult, of sorts - that exists in a cloud of myth. And, yes, the story resolves in a slightly fantastical way. But at its heart, PERSISTENCE is a classic tale of an outsider encoutering a culture he doesn't understand - yet inexorably finds himself drawn in. It is only through this very different world that he can truly discover himself.

This is a terrific piece of writing that is as accessible to those who shy away from sci-fi as it is to the most hard-core fan. And, with Peter Ganim's terrific narration, it is a perfect listen for a (slightly long) day's commute.

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5 of 6 people found this review helpful

4 out of 5 stars
By Katherine on 08-09-12

Fascinating!

In a post-apocalyptic near-future, a middle-aged drifter roams from commune to commune in the Southwest United States. Each of these groups has its own culture and he stays a while at each, doing whatever he needs (e.g., going nude, praying, chanting ???Hare Krishna???) to fit in while he???s there. This works well for him ??? he stays fed and sheltered and moves on when he???s ready for a change of scenery.

But when he comes across a walled-in settlement in the middle of Native American land, he finds that he can never fit in because the group who lives there are the adult descendents of women who contracted rubella while pregnant. All of these adults are both deaf and blind, though their children are not. At first the drifter is fascinated by the ways they???ve developed to get around their ???handicap,??? but soon he learns that, in their community, he???s the one with the disability because he will never be able to understand their language ??? a language that is a lot deeper than mere spoken words could ever be.

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about perception, I was fascinated by a culture that can???t see or hear, and I enjoyed the parts of the story that dealt with how the group overcame their obstacles. Also, the idea that communication without the masks of fake facial expressions and deceptive body language could be more informative than the ???normal??? methods is appealing. We get a lot of information about someone???s internal state through visual and auditory cues and it???s hard to imagine that tactile methods could compensate for missing this input, but John Varley is suggesting that people who are born blind and deaf might develop these sorts of paranormal abilities when normal sensory input is lacking. It is true that some people who are blind or deaf have sensory abilities that seeing and hearing people don???t have, or at least never realized they have (e.g., blindsight, echolocation). Perhaps Varley???s idea isn???t so far-fetched.

The Persistence of Vision, which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, will make you think. It will make you consider what kinds of wonderful abilities might be unmasked if you lost some of your ???normal??? abilities. Would it be worth the price?

I listened to Peter Ganim narrate the audio version produced by Audible Frontiers. It was a great production and I???m pleased to see so many Hugo- and Nebula-awarded stories in their catalog.

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4 of 5 people found this review helpful

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful
3 out of 5 stars
By Stuart on 04-15-18

Brilliant story, spoilt by the narrator

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

No

What did you like best about this story?

I have been a fan of John Varley for about 30 years, and love the depth and uniqueness of this story about one man's search for himself in a deaf/blind community.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

It sounds like he was reading it a word at a time, rather than reading ahead. Very stilted

Was The Persistence of Vision worth the listening time?

Yes

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