Saturday, September 30, 2006

Tale of Two Cities

I've joined a gym this last week and apart from the fact that I keep on dropping my mp3 player I find it an absolutely ideal time to listen to the audiobooks that I never quite had patience for previously.
There aren't that many of these but I acquired from audible The American Boy, Night Watch, and The Time-travellers Wife and have never actually finished any of them. First however I have gone for a book that I've actually read.

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - Read Martin Jarvis
Book - Well its Dickens. I don't feel qualified to give a mark out of 5 to Dickens. If you love him you love him. If you don't then generally you can't stand him. I'm kind of sitting on the fence. When I last read him I found him immensely tedious but I'm willing to give him another pop since when I last read him I was 15 years old.

Reading
Primary Voice - The narrator I guess. If audiobooks were rock music Martin Jarvis would be some sort of legend and at that some legend that died young to protect his genius. The narration here is done in his usual laconic style and I could listen to that all day (4/5)
Secondary Voices - These are what makes the book for me. Packed with character and distinct. (5/5)

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Listening or reading?

You're having a conversation and up pops the topic of a book you have heard in audiobook form.
Do you say "I've read that" or go for the more exact "I've listened to that"?

For Read:
Audiobooks are a novelty. Mentioning them inevitably busts up the conversation and if you say listened this always seems to happen.

For Listened:
Listened somehow seems more honest. I don't think its true that audiobooks are an easy alternative but then I wouldn't and there is a perception that classes them with waiting for the film as a method of consuming literature.

Its daft. Can't conduct a conversation and admit to absorbing a book in audio form - can't quite square conscience with not saying so. Generally I try to say listened and fumble it which just makes matters worse since the inaccuracy of "read" makes my skin itch.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Regarding Blandings

A previous post touched on the subject of PG Wodehouse and his Blandings castle saga.
I proclaimed that no specific reader had tied it up but didn't realise just how true this is -
BBC audio (formerly Chivers) holds the rights somehow so in their full unabridged versions we have
  1. A Pelican at Blandings - Nigel Lambert 4
  2. Blandings Castle - James Saxon
  3. Galahad at Blandings - Jeremy Sinden
  4. Summer Lightning - John Wells 4.5
  5. Uncle Fred in the Springtime - Jonathan Cecil 4
  6. Something Fresh - Peter Barker 5
and no doubt others.
I haven't heard the second or third but the others I report in all respects superb.
I like Something Fresh partly because it doesn't follow the formula estabilished in later Wodehouse and partly for a technically ridiculous reason. Peter Barker occasionally uses the wrong voice for dialogue, particularly in unattributed volleys. Strictly this should detract from the performance but I think it adds to the fun, particularly when a slip means he uses the male lead voice to bemoan male ignorance and has the female lead apologise.
Bonus half mark to Summer Lightning since John Wells bumps up the quality with the most perfect cast imaginable.

Thinking it over it could be an exceedingly good thing that readers differ. You do not read Wodehouse for the plots but for language. Quite apart from being juvenile in the extreme and requiring considerable suspension of disbelief the plots are all basically the same so differing timbre and style adds that extra little nudge that makes it worth reading/listening to more than one. In any case with language and performances combined these are an excellent set of audiobooks and an investment in any will be worth the listeners while.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Podcasting the Intellectual

I've been checking out 'quality' podcasts - specifically those at Warwick Podcasts
The quality of the subject matter and guests on these debates is astounding. For example
  • Steve Fuller battles it out against Jack Cohen on the Intelligent Design debate.
  • Ian Stewart discusses his Discworld books and the relationship between science and science fiction.
These guys are big bugs in science and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the water lurk debates and explanations on a range of topics from modern politics to conservativism in the renaissance. There's something for everyone but personally I'd recommend the technology debate Technology Matters with Professor David Nye and the ID debate above

The closest comparator that I have heard to these podcasts would be highly researched radio programs such as Radio 4 documentary. They take subjects and go into a detail that you could never get away with on TV. That said podcasting is by nature non-professional and if we were being harsh it would be possible to draw attention to
  • Absense of editorial balance
  • Lack of editing
  • A host notable for enthusiasm rather than radio manner
In terms of 'things being given away for free on the net' these are superb

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Regarding Psmith

OK.
I've gone with another Psmith book
In fact pretty well the other Psmith book

Its non-traditional Wodehouse being an early work. The Psmith series, I would surmise, is aimed more at a Boys Own Paper kind of audience than his later books. Certainly 'in the City' seemed to relate all activities to the structure of a boys boarding school. Journalist is set in New York and is packed with comedy gangsters and Tammany Hall politicians.

I'm a big fan of the reader of this book - Jonathan Cecil.
So far as Wodehouse goes he rules.
The Blandings castle saga is up for grabs but from Ukridge to Wooster Jonathan Cecil is the man.
That said I'm English.
There are lots of American voices in this book.
I don't know but I suspect he isn't wonderful.
Nevertheless I'm still going with a universal 4, good but not great

Book: 4
Reading: 4
(Primary voice 4, Secondary voice 4, Ambience 4)

Ultimately all very good.
A warning though. I got this from Audible and the quality is really bad. I was using their 3 format. I haven't checked the 4 format but generally 3 is perfectly adequate the only noise being the original quality of recording. This was damn awful. I'll check it out 4 at some point

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Story time

A point of variety is when people listen to audiobooks.
Top responses are
  • At the gym
  • Whilst doing housework
  • Whilst driving
In my case its all the above plus...
I simply answer to the general case that people are making...
Any time when the brain is partially, but far from fully occupied.
Audiobooks take up that extra fraction of brain that was otherwise getting bored. They are more stimulating than radio (at least most radio) but are less demanding than TV (both physically and mentally).
I don't listen when I'm composing words but otherwise audiobook-on is my default.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Regarding Memoirs


OK...inaccurate...more on this today
The point of the debate on first person narratives is Memoirs of a Geisha.
I downloaded this from Audible a few months ago and really liked it. For those few in this world that haven't read or listened to it the book is the story of a girl growing up as a geisha in Japan in the thirties and the war. Though it is fiction it has the ring of absolute authenticity but can include a plot that doesn't drag.
In other circumstances this would be positively the worse audiobook I've ever heard. The narrator sounds as though she had never heard of the English language until yesterday and had then decided to model her accent on a Speak-your-weight machine. Secondary characters are done in the style of a person who not only cannot act but cannot do impressions either. Nethertheless it works and I have a theory why...

The book has a preface saying something along the lines of
these memoirs were dictated to me by Nitta Sayuri as she sits in her chair drinking Japanese tea and a-yada-yada-yada
The book is set up as a story telling session.
It is set up to be two people sitting in a cosy room with one dictating in stilted English the story of her life to the other.
Additional voices would extend the audiobook beyond the realm of storytelling.
Now I was told that the film was terrible. Could this be the reason why?

First person narratives

Now... as example the following books...
  • Jane Eyre
  • PG Wodehouse's Jeeves series
  • The Time travellers wife
  • Memoirs of a Geisha
  • Catcher in the rye
  • The Eyre Affair
...these are all first person narratives.
Secondary characters strictly all speak through the main character.
Here's the question: Should they sound like it?
Now if you were making a movie of one of these books it would be more than a single character sitting in a room talking to the camera so my initial impulse was 'Hell No!'
A little reflection has tempered that to 'Largely No!' Audiobooks are a medium in their own right and have their own artistic code.
More on this tomorrow but for now ta-ta

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Ok...
As I was saying yesterday before accidentally and quite rudely interrupting myself and swinging off on a tangent the current webscape regarding audiobooks is limited, at least if one compares it to its juvenile spin-off the podcast.

Interesting point here is what differentiates an audiobook from a podcast?
Definition wise perhaps it is merely that podcasts merely don't stick to a script but if we face facts the difference exists in the same fashion that differences exist between high opera and four kids thrashing out a Sex Pistols medley in their Dad's garage.
Its actually quite a pleasing analogy
On the one hand you have opera: based in control and vocal technic, establishment, requires skills and training practically from birth
Garage bands: passionate, fast paced, potentially excruciating
Well perhaps professional readers don't work to quite the same level of training as opera singers
and, of what I have heard, the podcasts with an audiobook bend ain't that bad but still the distinction is there.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Categories of sites

We return today to the other, limited, sites dedicated to audiobooks out on the web.
Actually screw it, we do that tomorrow.
Today lets do a bit of considering.
If this blog is going to cover matters not strictly limited to my specific collection of 30 or so audiobooks I guess we are gonna have to clarify matters a little.
There's a lot of spoken word content out there on the net and it ain't really sensible to compare some of them...

Just an opinion friends but lets do this by site type giving a couple of examples of each (though I'm afraid I've picked UK sites when they aren't international)

Category One: Hardcopy
Isis or BBC Audio (cunning disguise that one)

Category Two: Download
Audible or Simply

Category Three: Copyright-free classics
Notably Librivox but also, as aforementioned Project Gutenberg

Category Four: Modern freebies
I expect there are others but Podiobooks initiated this ramble. This site permits authors the opportunity to extend their audience by doing an audio version of their work.

Category Five: Radio on the net:
Radio Four and BBC 7 spring immediately to mind.

No doubt more to follow.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Decline, fall, paralysis and death

Illness has engulfed your genial host.
Details involve a stag weekend, an artificial Scottish loch and a warning regarding Viles disease.
I feel it would have been more sporting to give this warning before we had been rafting but I suppose that merely classifies me as a "soft southern nancy"/"wee sassaunach fairy" or something similar.

All this is of limited interest Regarding Audiobooks if it weren't for the fact that I'm ill and ever since I was a wee bairn illness has been springtime for my audiobook based listening pleasure. Currently we have Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh read by a guy called Michael Maloney.

The book's good.
Maloney is good.
All is good...

...except me. Advanced symptoms of Viles disease are paralysis and death so there may not be an entry tomorrow.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Star Quality for the Blind

I've been listening to this freebie from Audible recently called

Reading Between The Lines: From Page to Production
Featuring amongst others Derek Jackobi, Rula Lenska, Lorelei King and Lynn Truss

It seems to be a seminar given by the BBC audio people at some literary festival. Made me consider audiobooks from a number of new angles particularly the issue of audiobook "stars"
I can think of several readers whose skill cannot be parallelled. Nigel Davenport for Gerald Durrell, Jonathan Cecil for Wodehouse, Christian Rodska for Waugh, Stephen Briggs for Pratchett... none of these are what you would call recognised faces but the recordings I have heard of them are without par. Contrast these with some recordings I have of better known actors and you have to conclude that audio skill is not related to visual charisma (I think particularly here of Jeremy Irons reading Brideshead Revisited though it is entirely possible that uncerceasing depression was built into that book to begin with)

Of course there are no hard and fast rules... however irritating you might find Simon Callow he can sure read an audiobook and Martin Jarvis is prolific wherever you look/listen.

Anyhow... audiobook reading skill is a funny old thing.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Psmith in the City

The third of the month has immense significance in terms of Audiobooks - it is my Audible renewal date. Each third of the month I get two bonus Audible book credits. Generally I go for one straight away and one book a week or so into the month. Todays new book is

Psmith in the City - by PG Wodehouse
Read by Jonathan Cecil

Book (4) - The Psmith line of books are early Wodehouse and he appears to have been writing for the English boarding school market rather than the more general audience that have come to love his Blandings and Jeeves books. Still they are quite enjoyable particularly since they explore a 20s world that is not all country houses and London clubs.

Primary Voice (5) - Primary voice in this book is a narrator and it is done wonderfully. Jonathan Cecil is a king of the audiobook world, particularly Wodehouse. His narrator is neither characterless nor excessively intrusive.

Secondary Voices (4) - The reader has fabricated a fitting set of characters with distinct and charactersome voices for all the major characters. Jonathan Cecil has a huge Wodehousian output and one would expect there to be some degree of crossover in the voices but no, these are superb and unique.

Atmosphere (4) - No issues here. Atmosphere is a product of the narrator and Jonathan Cecil is quite capable in this case of expressing highs and lows in the narrative.

Overall (4/5)
- A reasonably good book well held up - and possibly even improved - by an excellent reading.


Trivia factoid -
Wodehouse says in a preface to Something Fresh that Psmith is his only character based on a genuine person, namely Rupert D'Oyly Carte, son of the producer of the original Gilbert and Sullivan plays.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Three Men in a Boat

Okay - final diagnosis using my new framework for reviewing audiobooks.

Three Men in a Boat - By Jerome K Jerome
Read - Martin Jarvis

Book - (5 or 1) In parts a classic of the English language. In parts turgid as hell.

Primary voice - (5/5) Martin Jarvis as ever does the upper class English toff to a tee. Its a testement to the man that he sounds practically identical in everything he does yet his narration makes me think of Jerome K Jerome rather than Martin Jarvis
Secondary voices - (2/5)
On the whole unimportant for a book such as this. In fact generosity could lead you to class the complete lack of inspiration or differentiation between all secondary characters as deliberate. Three Men in a Boat is basically a written monologue so the simple cast makes the reading that bit more intimate. Still not wonderful.
Atmosphere (3/5) Keeps nicely to the atmosphere of the book. Of course that requires it to be tedious as hell and up its own fundament at times but I guess that can't really be helped.

Overall: 3/5 - The book is a 5 but that relies on the ability to easily skip the dull bits. This is a quality reading but that doesn't get around the fact that 3 out of 6 hours are just plain tedious. Interesting a first time round as illustration of just how weird and up their own back sides the Victorians were but still tedious.