Some critics — the always tiresome Harold Bloom among them — claim that listening to audiobooks isn't reading. I couldn't disagree more. In some ways, audio perfects reading....King lists a Top Ten and lavishes praise on the number 1 choice: Philip Roth's "American Pastoral," read by Ron Silver. I don't need any more convincing. I'm going right over to Audible.com to buy it. And I'm going to check out Stephen King's new book, even though he doesn't mention it. It's gotten high critical praise, you know. I'm buying it. (It's read by Mare Winningham.)
The book purists argue for the sanctity of the page and the perfect communion of reader and writer, with no intermediary. They say that if there's something you don't understand in a book, you can always go back and read it again (these seem to be people so technologically challenged they've never heard of rewind, or can't find the back button on their CD players). Bloom has said that ''Deep reading really demands the inner ear...that part of you which is open to wisdom. You need the text in front of you.'' Here is a man who has clearly never listened to a campfire story....
There's this, too: Audio is merciless. It exposes every bad sentence, half-baked metaphor, and lousy word choice. (Listen to a Tom Clancy novel on CD, and you will never, ever read another. You'll never be able to look at another one without gibbering.) I can't remember ever reading a piece of work and wondering how it would look up on the silver screen, but I always wonder how it will sound. Because, all apologies to Mr. Bloom, the spoken word is the acid test. They don't call it storytelling for nothing.
I love audiobooks, and not just because sometimes I want to rest my eyes and sometimes I want or need to walk somewhere. I love the meaning and feeling the reader gives to the book. If you're wondering which audiobooks I've been listening to lately, here's my current set of books, my reading list, if I can say that:
"The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid," Bill Bryson
"Don't Get Too Comfortable," David Rakoff
"Napoleon," Paul Johnson
"A Spot of Bother," Mark Haddon
Posts
34 comments:
as far as audiobooks go, my very favorite is probably bill bryson's a short history of nearly everything.
I just finished "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" on a flight to San Francisco.
I haven't laughed out loud so much since the last time I read a Bryson book.
Some readers use a different voice for every character in a Audible book. Then it becomes a radio play and is vastly more entertaining.
Portability is one of the major reasons I buy Audible books. I have 310 books on my tiny Ipod nano. Do you realize how much space 310 books would take up in a room?
Audiobooks don't do much for me, but I'm not going to disparage anyone that likes them. I think it has just been a function of trying to listen to them while commuting and getting too distracted.
I will say the exceptions have been listening to The Iliad and The Odyssey. Maybe because they were originally oral tales? I don't know, but I'm not going to worry about it too much and just enjoy...
Yes I am tiresome enough.
Audiobooks are for people who can read, and who like to read. Those who can't manage to finish a book ought not to go near an audiobook, their minds thus unconditioned to concentrating, and not needing to drift further in that direction. Every nuance will be missed while they "read" their way to work, to the gym, and while cleaning.
Obviously listening to audio books is not reading. It's listening. Both experiences are valuable. But they are different.
Hearing a good actor read a book is a wonderful experience, but it's not the same thing as holding a copy of King Lear in your hand and contemplating, again and again, the words of the fool.
I like audio books, too. But let's try a thought experiment. You're on a desert island. The genie offers the complete works of Shakespeare on tape or the Oxford edition in print. I'd take the book all day long, but I'd hate like hell to lose the performance art.
For people who get carsick reading (I raise my hand), audio books are really great. They're also great if you're alone in the car, although in that case I play a CD and sing at the top of my lungs.
I don't care for audiobooks, myself, because I usually prefer to skim works of fiction unless I find them really engrossing. For non-fiction books the audio format isn't very good -- while you can, indeed, rewind a CD or an MP3, it is a heck of a lot easier to find the page or reference you're looking for by paging through a book than it is to find it by scanning back and forth in a sound file.
Wow, that is pretty rich for Stephen King of all people to mock another author for half-baked metaphors and lousy word choice.
I agree with Steve and others: I've read both Stephen King and Tom Clancy and I hadn't noticed much difference in the writing quality. I presume it's Clancy's political beliefs that cause King to consider him a bad writer. What I don't know is whether King's political beliefs are the cause of his receiving high critical praise on his latest. It wouldn't surprise me, though.
I don't like to be read to either, although I haven't tried the audiobooks (for that reason, really). But the homeschool curriculum we use emphasizes the importance of both reading great books and hearing great books, and also hearing stories told well. For me, the listening part is difficult, but I understand that it's a function of my concentration or lack thereof, and that it is a skill that can be developed and improved.
Ironically enough I was listening to Tom Clancy's "Executive Orders" audio-book today on my commute to/from work. I like his writing, perhaps I'm not being picky enough? The only frustrating thing is how jumpy the abridged version can be, but that isn't the authors fault.
For those that enjoy audio books and have a long drive to/from work I'd recommend checking out simplyaudiobooks.com. It's kind of like the Netflix for Audio CDs. I'm on the four books at a time plan. Given my long commute (1.5 to 2 hours each way) I burn through books really fast, but if it weren't for them I'd go crazy.
I will say this: I would rather be reading a blog than listening to one.
Don't have many, but I tend to buy audiobooks of texts I enjoy rereading. Sometimes being forced to go at the reader's pace and not being able to skip ahead brings out nuances in the book I'd forgotten about.
Just for the joy of listening to him, you can't go wrong with John Cleese reading "The Screwtape Letters."
Don't have many, but I tend to buy audiobooks of texts I enjoy rereading.
Yeah, I like to get audiobooks of my favorite novels. Most recently I listened to Joe Mantegna narrating Richard Price's Clockers and enjoyed his reading very much! And I also checked out the audiobook version of Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, one of my very favorite novels. They included a version of the traditional song the novel takes its title from, "The Butcher Boy", as sung by the late, great singer Kirsty MacColl. It made me like the novel a lot more to hear this song instead of just reading the lyrics!
Fans of audiobooks are denying themselves the chance at a well-developed imagination.
People that spend a lot of time, watching the movies of....instead of reading the actual novels....
People that listen to the novels...instead of using imagination..
I like to form my own impressions and imagination of what character's voices sound like. My own impressions, (not someone else's) of what a narrator sounds like---in my head.
I don't need things fed to me.
I like to come to my own conclusions of who a character is. A voice that doesn't seem to fit the character....takes away from what I've already imagined.
...Much the same way movies that are made out of novels are much less satisfying than my own imagination.
Not to mention too passive.
One of my few pet peeves: People asserting that Stephen King is a bad writer. He's extremely good, and his talent towers over most other popular fiction writers.
If you have kids (or just like Roald Dahl) I highly recommend James and the Giant Peach read by Jeremy Irons. His reading is just perfect.
Personally I'm not a big fan of audio books. This is mainly because I live in Tokyo, and don't own a car, and thus have no place where they might come in handy.
However, that's no reason to disparage the form. If I still lived in SoCal I'd be listening.
(Still, audio books probably are a bad idea for people with low literacy...)
"Audio is merciless. It exposes every bad sentence, half-baked metaphor, and lousy word choice."
Hell is a Stephen King audiobook.
That is opinion, and IMHO a BS one. I have all the Dark Tower boks from Audible (~150 or so hours), and I thought they were wonderful. Stepehn King can tell a good story, and that translates to aufio very, very well.
I listen to many, many books. First, I find that jogging and driving (when I do 90% of my listening) are much more bearable.
Second, I find that hearing the books brings actaully increases my understanding of the book, becasue I do have to concentrate so well to follow. I mean, it is hard to skim/skip over sentences or words.
And oddly, as I pass certain places, I tend to recall particularly memorable portions of books.
I also have a soft for for author read books. One of my favrite audible books was 'Miles Gone By' written and read by William F. Buckly. I am not at all certain I would have understood the essays nearly as wel without hearing his inflection (and the sardonic humor was much, much more obvious when you could here the voice...)
Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace read by Elizabeth McGovern is my fave.
I am dumbfounded by Stephen King criticizing ANYONE'S writing. His writing is unbearable, and I'm not too much of a snob about that stuff.
Sorry, everyone, but I'm with Ignacio, Harold Bloom, Maxine, and others here who don't try to confuse reading with being read to. I personally cannot stand audio books, and I've given them multiple shots. Having someone else read the story to you destroys the cadence of the sentences by imposing a narrator's flow to the material, and also messes up the voices and inflections a reader gives to dialogue in his or her own head. Audiobooks end up feeling pendantic and plodding, not to mention rather monotonous, since I've yet to hear one with different voice actors reading different character's parts.
Reading a story to an audience does have it's place, but we shouldn't try to say it takes the place of reading. It might inform you about the characters, let you know the dialogue, and give you the plot of the story, but it's fundamentally a different experience.
I'd rather read - but the audio book of Angela's Ashes (which was read by the author) was great.
That is opinion, and IMHO a BS one. I have all the Dark Tower boks from Audible (~150 or so hours), and I thought they were wonderful.
No, that's incorrect. It's been scientifically proven that the last three Dark Tower books made the world a worse place by 7%.
Fer chrissakes, it's like King was writing fanfiction of his own work...
I haven't listened to audiobooks much, but I've been reading books to my two daughters for years. The oldest, now in 6th grade, still likes to be read to, and I enjoy it very much. The two school books we're reading together now are Of Mice and Men, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Steinbeck would work just as well if she read it to herself but is certainly not diminished in any way by being read out loud. Gilgamesh, especially, improves by being read out loud. She had trouble understanding it when she was just reading it to herself, but the different voices, the cadences and repetitions, came alive when I read it to her. When she gets around to reading the Iliad or the Odyssey, I'm sure those works, and poetry generally, will work better by being heard as they are being read.
My younger daughter, in 2nd grade, likes the Harry Potter books. They're fine as far as they go, and the story certainly engages the mind of a 2nd grader. But reading them out loud doesn't add much. They're too slight to be worth the time or trouble, and you can get everything they have to offer from a quick skim. Having read three to her already, I would be delighted if she wanted to move on.
That's my reaction to Steven King and Tom Clancy as well. Both can provide a conventional "good read," and neither is very demanding on the reader or worth the effort to read closely. Listening to someone read their books while commuting or walking might be worth while if the audio cut out a lot of the fluff and just stuck to the main storyline.
As for the potshots at Harold Bloom, they sound like the sort of thing someone who hasn't read much of his criticism might say. Even apart from his major works on Shakespeare, his more popular stuff is full of sharp insights and comparisons -- Cormac McCarthy and Herman Melville, Chekhov and Flannery O'Connor, etc. In the comments in this thread, Old Dad (I may have more than literary taste in common with him) gets Bloom's larger point exactly right: like any really good work, Shakespeare on the page is full of great, often subtle, stuff that a performance or oral reading moves too fast to capture. Performance adds its own dimension that reading silently also leaves out, but literature of any quality needs a close reading. Like a few others on this thread, while I'm happy to read to my kids, I prefer to read than be read to.
I'm bit surprised by all the either/or arguments (well, not really, these are blog comments). There are valid arguments for not personally liking audiobooks, but then y'all lose me by then stating this makes listening worse than reading. Seriously, people; get a grip. Oral story-telling has been around a year or two longer than the printed page, it isn't exactly an interloper.
Why can't both experiences be valid? Just to pick out a couple of representational quotes: Fans of audiobooks are denying themselves the chance at a well-developed imagination and Having someone else read the story to you destroys the cadence of the sentences by imposing a narrator's flow to the material, and also messes up the voices and inflections a reader gives to dialogue in his or her own head.
Damn you Thomas Edison and your phonograph conspiracy. So why listen to a singer when you can read the lyric sheet? Why watch a play when you can read the script? All those instruments and special effects mucking up the voices in my head. Frankily, I'm getting the sense there's too many people listening to the voices in their heads and they could use a second opinion.
Well, I think some fiction writing more closely resembles 'story telling' in the oral tradition and some doesn't. I suspect the former works better in audio than the latter.
That being said, there are some performers I'd 'listen to even if they were reading the phonebook' and some books I don't want to 'hear'. YMMV
On road trips, my wife and I listen to some audio books, but it usually works better for her. She dips in and out of books, wants large blocks of time to read, and reads in general more slowly than I.
I read very quickly and in short bursts. (I can read a paqe or two, lay the book down, come back in three days and know exactly where I am in the story. She can't.
I thus tend to fall into the category of people who don't listen to audio books. For me, only a few fit the mode (unless read by someone whose voice fascinates me --John Cleese or Sean Connery would fall into that category, and even then ...) and most of those pass too slowly when read.
All in all though, I think audiobooks are one of the better inventions of the past few decades.
"So why listen to a singer when you can read the lyric sheet? Why watch a play when you can read the script?"
Due respect, those are entirely different things Bill. A book doesn't set out the key it's in, nor does it say you have to be reading this in, say, 12/4 timing for it to make sense. Plus, there are other elements to a song, such as the parts contributed by instruments (except, of course, in a capella songs). Plus, part of the experience of music is to appreciate the musician’s unique interpretations of the works.
Also: A play is supposed to include visual elements to enhance the story. It's intended to be viewed, not merely read. The script is not the final product, any more than the lyric sheet or sheet music is the final product of music. Both are tools towards the final products. But books are the end result of the artist's work. They are the final product.
Look, I'm not damming all the oral storytelling tradition - I still have a love for the Tall Tale tradition I was exposed to in elementary school, and that's mostly oral. What I’m saying is that audiobooks are not the same experience, and to be frank, they've not been executed anywhere near as well as they should be. Like I said: "Reading a story to an audience does have its place, but we shouldn't try to say it takes the place of reading. It might inform you about the characters, let you know the dialogue, and give you the plot of the story, but it's fundamentally a different experience".
I accept that some books out there probably come off perfectly fine when read aloud. But honestly, most don't. The personal experience I've had with books I've read, then listened to as audiobooks (and vice versa: Listened to, then read) have to me shown that too many audiobooks simply are nowhere near the same experience as reading the originals for yourself. I love good storytelling, regardless of the method used in delivery. But I can't stand audiobooks for the reasons I stated before: It imposes a word flow and cadence that isn't necessarily yours, yet doesn't give you the total alternate-vision immersion that a movie based on a book would. The only partial filling of the blanks while leaving the rest to the imagination is jarring to me; I'd either rather read the original, or see a completely executed vision of it (re: Lord of the Rings trilogy) than have something in-between where the envisioning is only partially handled for me. I loved reading the LOTR books, I loved watching the movies, I don't pretend either is the same type of experience. One leaves everything to the imagination, the other paints a complete picture of it and lets you immerse yourself in a different way. Having the LOTR's read to you?... well, that's a neither fish-nor-fowl case with me. The in-betweenness of the experience is off-putting.
Keep in mind that part of my argument is execution. I admit, there are sections from the LOTR books I'd love to hear performed. But they must be performed, not merely read in that drugged, trance-inducing way that too many audiobook readers tend to use.
There is nothing - nothing - wrong with oral storytelling. But its modern execution in audiobooks simply leaves too much to be desired.
gj, Donal Donnelly is a great reader. I've enjoyed his work on other books, so I'll try his reading of Ulysses on your recommendation.
I love both paper and audio. I often get an audio copy of a book I've already read, just to hear it come alive in the voice of a good reader. I learned to read, like many children I suppose, by listening to my mother read to me and following along. My father told me stories, silly ones he'd make up as he went along, before bedtime. I love stories, in pretty much every format.
My job compelled me to drive 7000 miles during the last two months visiting exciting towns in Texas like Roscoe, Buna, Iraan, and Texhoma.
Without audiobooks and audible.com in particular I would probably fall asleep at the wheel and kill myself.
At home or while flying I always read and never listen to audiobooks. Audiobooks are a special treat for those of us who drive extensively.
"Life of Pi" was a very good listen but I have a hard time imagining Ms Althouse reading it.
ignacio, you've made some good points. I'm taking them seriously, but I'm also not persuaded that audio books actually impose an interpretation on me. But I'm a longtime reader; I can see making the case that kids really ought to learn how to dive in and create a scene, hear their own voices, and even struggle with the text and get things a little mixed up. I wouldn't replace text with audio; I just like both. Learning to read well might be an important thing before diving into audio books. I don't know, but the points you raise indicate that.
I tend to enjoy works read by the authors, like David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. And I frequently will both read and listen to a book. Sometimes I have a copy of a book and a recording, and I'll pick up in the text when I get home (I tend to listen in my car), then fast-forward on the iPod to where I left off in the text.
I listened to P.G. Wodehouse on a plane and was shaking with silent laighter. I was glad the other passengers didn't tie me up with belts for being a lunatic.
I like to read, I like to listen depends on the day. But even my wild imagination couldn't get those brit-twit Wodehouse accents right, what?
Although I have never listened to any book but one (a few Agatha Christie short stories read by Joan Hickson), I find those who have nothing better to do than lecture others about how it isn't appropriate about as insecure as those who insist the experience is identical to silently reading a book. It is not. Whether one method is better than the other depends entirely on your own personal preference and, as has been pointed out here, location (as in driving a car for great lengths of time). Isn't it wonderful we all have a choice? We should celebrate that idea.
"Whatever floats your boat" is my motto on most subjects like this one. Like to listen to listen to audiobooks? Great! Like to read books? Great! Like both? Great!
Enjoy!
Some authors I would never "read" but are revelations in audio format. In this category I place William Faulkner and Marcel Proust.
I used to read a couple of hundred books a year but burnt out reading. I now only read a book if it is in audio format. I try to walk for an hour a day and can get in quite a lot of reading listening while I walk.
John
Post a Comment