Pilgrim's Progress

I started listening to the professionally narrated version by Nadia May, but I found the librivox version was better. Alas, I had trouble getting involved in the story. Often I'll start a work and not really understand the first part until I get into the book. Part way through, I start to get involved with the characters and the plot and all starts to get tired together. Then, I can go back to the start and it all starts to flow together.

Alas, with Pilgrim's progress it never seemed to flow. The many episodes made sense on their own, but I could not seem to tie them together in a common story. It ended up sitting for me like a number of isolated aphorisms.

The characters where their character on the outside. Everybody has a name that describes them, from worldly wiseman to Christian. In the first part Christian attempts to achieve salvation on his own. Later, in the second part, his wife and children attempt it on their own. There are plenty of obvious Christian references on the quest for salvation. The stories encompass many bits of protestant doctrine from Bunyan, thus making it a great source for quotes, even if it is not a very coherent story.