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28 February 2015

Simon won't let me talk about audio books

Jeremy Northam. See number 6.

I keep bringing up audiobooks on The Readers, but I don't think Simon really wants to talk about them. I can understand. Before I became a convert I didn't want to talk (or hear) about them either.

1. I'm counting them on my books read list for the year. I used to think this was totally cheating. But now that I am listening to books on my driving commute since I can no longer read on a mass transit commute, it feels like a much more equivalent activity than I ever would have thought. Plus one still spends a lot of time with an audiobook. 40 hours for a Trollope. One still goes through the ups and downs of the story and feels the emotions of it. And in some ways I think I am even more aware of the prose than I am when I read.

2. I'm still only choosing books that I have already read. In general they are books I read and liked years ago and would like to revisit them without taking away from reading other books for the first time. This has proven quite ineresting.

3. I need plot and/or material details much more in audiobooks than in regular books. Abstract concepts or thoughts are a little too hard to follow when driving. I'm dying to listen to all the Brookner novels I have downloaded, but the car isn't the right place for them.

4. So far, children's dialog in audio books is dreadful. The readers voicing the children make me want to reach in the book and slap the kids silly. They all sound so whiny and annoying. Then again I felt that when I read Pied Piper and What Happened to the Corbetts as well, so maybe it has more to do with the way Nevil Shute writes kids.

5. IF YOU ARE GOING TO RECORD GIOVANNI'S ROOM BY JAMES BALDWIN YOU BETTER BE ABLE TO PRONOUNCE 'GIOVANNI' AND BASIC FRENCH. AND, IF YOU INSIST ON RECORDING IT EVEN WITH YOUR TERRIBLE PRONUNCIATION, COULD YOU AT LEAST BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR MISTAKES. I HAVEN'T HEARD 'MONSIEUR' PRONOUNCED THAT WAY SINCE I WAS IN MY 11TH GRADE BEGINNING FRENCH CLASS.

6. Our Man in Havana
Graham Greene wrote some unbelievably good books. And OMIH is not a bad book, but you have to be ready for a few scenes that are of the "Who's on First" type of farce. I laughed like crazy at the famous Abbott and Costello routine when I was a kid, but as an adult that kind of farce makes my teeth itch. I first read this book back in 1997 and quite enjoyed listening to it recently on audio book. But the heavy farce scenes were even more annoying on audio than on the page. I largely liked Jeremy Northam's narration, not sure all his accents were very solid, but Northam can whisper in my ear any day. The worst part about this audio book was the use of bad faux-salsa music between chapters.

The only thing more handsome than Jeremy Northam is Jeremy Northam with a beard.
Here he is in The Golden Bowl.