Audiobooks
I love audiobooks.
When I work out, fold laundry, weed the flower bed, cook supper, chances are I’m listening to an audiobook on my MP3 player. I’ve even been known to listen while grocery shopping.
I only listen to unabridged books, but beyond that, the range of what I’ll listen to is broader than the range of books I’ll read off the page.
As a writer, I’m interested in differences between reading a book and listening to it. For me, the listening part has been a revelation. Voice is fascinating, both the voice of the narrator and the voice of the person recording the book. Both contribute to the “story world,” the nuance.
I’m a big Dickens fan, so I’ve listened to quite a few, and am regularly struck by the way his stories flow when spoken. He must have carefully considered this aspect of his work while writing, which would be natural in a time when books were read aloud in company as a form of group entertainment. The connection between writing and storytelling is clear and strong.
Some modern novels, in their audiobook versions, seem to highlight the differences between writing and storytelling. Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love is a good example. The way the story is broken up, the voices of the point of view characters, the less definitive resolution of the plot, all seem rooted in cinema rather than storytelling. Or perhaps a more relative view of the world.
My personal reading of the text often varies from that of the voice talent reading the book aloud. Sometimes, I think my interpretation of where the emphasis should go is better; other times, the reader reveals something to me, an emotion or tension I hadn’t considered. It’s almost like reading a book from inside someone else’s head.