I truly enjoyed this biography and learned a great deal about painting, about Van Gogh and about his contemporaries and culture. I also enjoyed MOST of the narration – one can imagine 45 hours of listening would be almost impossible if it were not very good. However, given how much of the story took place in France and how many of the art terms were in French and how much of the letters between Theo and Vincent were written in French there is a great deal of French vocabulary in the text which necessitates either a narrator who speaks French or at least pronounces it consistently – even if Americanized. Unfortunately this reader tries to use a French pronunciation but does not speak or hear French correctly OR consistently making it very difficult to understand what he is trying to say – particularly when using an artistic term like ‘plein-air’ which sounded like KLEIN air until I finally realized what he was actually saying. This is why I only rated the performance four stars – it would otherwise have truly been a five star performance but it was very annoying if not annoying enough to give up this wonderful book.