Hear, hear

Strangely, I have never tried an audiobook, but after interviewing an audiobook publisher recently, I decided to give a couple a go. It helped that this publisher gave me some downloads gratis - I cannot be bought, but I am shameless.


Of course, I am not totally new to spoken word. There is a lot of stuff on BBC Radio 4 I listen to like the Saturday Play or Book at Bedtime. But those have either a number of actors speaking the parts or are in short bursts. An audiobook reader's ability then, particularly if you are going to be with him or her for 100-200,000 words, is crucial. This was originally a problem with the first I listened to, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, read by Rupert Degas. Even before I checked his profile on IMDB which confirmed my suspicions, Degas sounded like an Englishman putting on an American accent, overemphasising every syllable like a the voice over of a Hollywood blockbuster trailer.

Yet that abated as the book went on, his voice becoming more in tune with McCarthy's spare, hard as granite prose. It perhaps helps that the novel is basically a two-hander—a man and a boy who are walking through a post-apocalyptic America—so he doesn't have to put on too many other voices for the dialogue.

Overall, the experience is enjoyable, but I couldn't really stop feeling that I was somehow cheating: I should be reading the book, not letting someone else do the work. I wonder, too, whether the next time I read a McCarthy book will I hear Degas in my head—which would be rather annoying. And here are some practical concerns. Trying to listen as I walked through London, with double-decker buses roaring by meant that I constantly missed things and had to rewind.