Living Alone

audiobook

Living Alone

by Stella Benson

EN·~4 hours

Chapters

Description

A restless voice narrates a quest for absolute solitude, drifting between lyrical lament and cosmic wonder. The speaker declares a divorce from self, seeking silence amid endless time and sea‑like space, while the prose swirls with images of stars, ancient ruins, and the melancholy of forgotten souls. The language wavers between archaic cadence and modern disquiet, inviting listeners to contemplate the price of freedom from inner turmoil. This opening poem‑like soliloquy sets a tone that feels both otherworldly and deeply human.

The story then lands in a cramped London room where six women, bound to a wartime savings committee, await their mayor‑chairman. Their routine is shattered when a frantic stranger bursts in, claiming she is being pursued, and collapses beneath the table. Their bewildered reactions hint at deeper societal anxieties, turning a banal meeting into a portal for the extraordinary. As the committee grapples with the intrusion, hints of magic and an unexpected heroine begin to surface, promising a strange blend of domestic politics and the uncanny.

Details

Language

en

Duration

~4 hours (238K characters)

Publisher of text edition

Project Gutenberg

Credits

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Release date

2005-02-04

Rights

Public domain in the USA.

About the author

Stella Benson

Stella Benson

1892–1933

Known for mixing wit, fantasy, and sharp social observation, this British writer built a small but distinctive body of novels, poems, and travel writing in the years after World War I. Her life took her far beyond England, and that wide experience gives her work an unusual freshness and range.

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