Review # 70: Audio Book "The Invisible Bridge" by Julie Orringer

This review is for the 22 CD audio book "The Invisible Bridge" by Julie Orringer, narrated by Arthur Morey.

The review goes like this:

"The Invisible Bridge" by Julie Orringer is a pretty amazing work of historical fiction.

In pre- WWII Europe, in spite of a growing anti Jewish sentiment and quotas for how many Jews can attend universities, young Hungarian Jew, Andras Levi, middle son of a tight-knit working class Hungarian family, is so smart and talented  that he is given a full scholarship to go to an architecture school in Paris, France.
In Paris, young naive Andras finds love with mysterious, older and more worldly, ballet instructor Klara Morgenstern. He finds close friendship with some other students at the architecture school. He learns to enjoy life in Paris and at school. Unfortunately, as Nazi Germany becomes more powerful, Andras is forced to return to Hungary where he spends the next years serving in the Hungarian Labor Service. Impossible working conditions, near starvation, sickness, bombings, brutality, frostbite, being buried alive are only a few things that poor protagonist Andras must endure.
This book could have been much shorter, and my preference would have been for the Klara -Andras Paris romance to be a little less drawn out. I was not a big Klara fan, although she is devoted to Andras and later their children, there is something about her character that I could not warm to. Possibly it is a certain inconsistency in her behaviors, as if the author could not quite decide who exactly Klara should be.
I liked the hugeness of this story, the many years it spanned, the history lesson of it. I loved hearing about Hungary, hearing the language spoken, and hearing the decsriptions of Budapest. Although I could not believe that any one man could survive all (or even half) that Andras does, I accepted that his experience was maybe a compilation of events that happened to different people. It was horrible to listen too, yet the thought of how amazing that within a world being overcome with evil that love for friends and family can prevail and how strong the will to live can be, was moving.
Narrator Arthur Morey did a great job and listening to it made the hours (according to the case - 28 hrs) in the car fly by.  Between the good  story and the narrator, this was the type of audio book where you leave the car idling for "just one more minute" to try and catch just a little bit more.
I enjoyed and was moved by this book. I give this audio version of "The Invisible Bridge" a  9.