21 November 2011

Read Me A Story

Since June, my work commute has gone from twenty minutes to fifty, one way. If I'm lucky.

I thought this long drive would be a 'price' to pay for getting to live where I really want to live. But thanks to audio books, I actually look forward to it each day.

Now I've loved audio books for years. Ages before Kindles, Nooks and other such newfanglery.
Long ago, audio titles were once thought of as primarily for people who had trouble reading for whatever reason.

One former fellow book club member of mine said it was cheating to listen to instead of reading the book selection. I was pissed. Them's fightin words!

As much as I love audio, the reader is the deal maker or breaker for me.

I loved the book Cold Mountain when I read it for South Hill library's book club years ago. But later, when I went back to listen to it, I couldn't get past the second chapter. I wanted to love it, but alas. I think Charles Frazier is an amazing author, but a 'not great' reader as far as audio books go. Yet, when I listened to Thirteen Moons, also by Frazier, but this time read by Will Patton, holy shit what a difference. The perfect blend. I highly recommend it.

The opposite can be true as well. A branch librarian recommended The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency years ago. I read the book. And frankly, it was completely flat. It read like a straight line. Absolutely unsatisfying. I remember wondering why people liked this book so much.

But then, and I cannot for the life of me remember WHY, one day as I was leaving Tillicum branch to head home, I grabbed the audio version and fell in deep dark love with the reader: Lisette Lecat. Like listening to Meryl Streep read to me.

And speaking of Meryl Streep, have you ever listened to her audio version of The Velveteen Rabbit?
Every night for three months, I had to walk away from my infant son and go home, leaving him at Children's Hospital until I could return the next morning. Before I left, I'd push play on a little tape player that sat at the head of his 'bed,' and Meryl Streep would read him to sleep with the words of Margery Williams,
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html

I wish you could listen to these words here, instead of reading them.

Maybe that's when I truly fell in love with listening to books. 1987.

I'm grateful for a good reader.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Whenever you write about your kids, especaqilly stories I have not heard before, it is so real. You make my eyes water. I love it.