The Most Dangerous Game and Other Stories - Richard Connell, Willa Cather, Henry James Audiobook

Written by Richard Connell, Willa Cather, Henry James
Read by William Coon
Format: MP3

Publisher: Eloquent Voice, LLC
Release date: May 25, 2011
Duration: 03:56:10

At first glance, ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ by Richard Connell, ‘Paul’s Case’ by Willa Cather, and ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ by Henry James have very little in common.

In ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ Sanger Rainsford, an accomplished big game hunter, is marooned on a remote island that is inhabited by another big game hunter, General Zaroff, who has found a very twisted way to add thrills to his hunting parties.

Inspired by the big-game hunting safaris that were quite popular among the wealthy class during the 1920s, “The Most Dangerous Game” (1924) combines a dangerous plight and a battle of wills between two very experienced hunters with two very different motivations.

In ‘Paul’s Case’ a young man from Pittsburgh struggles with feelings of alienation from his middle-class surroundings.

In ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ John Marcher lives his entire life waiting for a defining moment to happen.

But in each of these stories, the main character makes extreme choices under isolating circumstances. For Rainsford case, the isolation is external, imposed upon him by the insane General Zaroff. For Paul, the isolation comes from ‘the shadowed corner, the dark place into which he dared not look, but from which something seemed always to be watching him.’ For John Marcher, the isolation is ‘the real truth’ about himself, his undefined ‘beast’ that is liable to spring at any moment. Their choices make these must read stories.

The Most Dangerous Game was the basis for a movie of the same name in 1932, It is now in public domain and there is probably a torrent or two of it out there.