Audio Books

Since I have moved to VA I find myself spending far more time in the car – and more time in the car means more time that I have to fill my brain with various and sundry to do lists for me and for Scott. Remedy? Audio Books.

I’ve always been an avid reader – and I can easily burn through 100 pages an hour if I like the book/content/topic. If I don’t like it…well…I just put it down.

So while I have never sought out audio books before, it seemed like a logical thing to do to make my time in the car more pleasant and relaxing, less anxiety-induced task-master I have a hundred things to do and I am stuck in the car – and even get to have some hobby time.

But there is this thing about audio books – you need to listen.

So Scott will tell you that I am indeed not the best listener in the world, because while I am not clinically ADD I am easily distracted. I suffer from a severe case of the “Ooh, something shiny” phenomenon.

Being that I am not a naturally great listener, I can’t say that I am catching everything. Of course part of that has to do with the fact that I am driving, and therefore need to pay attention to the road. Another part of it is that it isn’t an ensemble cast – so I am hearing one person read aloud – doing “character voices” to distinguish between speakers. But. It’s the same guy. No matter what change in his voice he employs? Still sounds like him.

Audio books really should use either multiple actors or use someone that really has a range of voices that are distinct. Take the cast of the Simpsons, for instance. Most of them are able to do multiple characters, and until you get really familiar with them, you might not know which half a dozen are done by Hank Azaria and which are done by Dan Castellaneta.

And there’s another thing with the voices. When you read a book, if you are anything like me, you conjure your own character voices in your head. Listening to someone else’s interpretation of the voices is sometimes quite painful. I’m currently listening to The Black Mountain, by Rex Stout, as narrated by Michael Prichard. Now I am sure that the producers think he is the cat’s meow because they used him for the whole series of Rex Stout mysteries. I, however, do not want to listen to him again. He isn’t horrible or grating. Quite the contrary – I find him almost too smooth – so I find myself easily disengaging from the story because it starts to sound like background noise (so each time I start to drift, I turn the volume up).

It’s also hard because the pacing feels off. Archie Goodwin has very snappy banter. Nero Wolfe is very thoughtful, methodical, and exact. The pacing seems the same for both - so I have to listen for the subtleties to hear the transition from one character to another.

His Wolfe is starting to grow on me. I say that with some reserve, but I firmly believe that if I picked up another audio book in a few months, I would find it as grating as I did at the beginning of this one. However, I have now been listening to him for 3 days straight, and Wolfe is becoming tolerable.

But not so with Archie. It’s a strange book for his character, so I don’t put the full onus on Prichard. But. Archie is a man of action, sharp, witty, and yes, in this book, quite frustrated. But Archie is not a whiner. And that’s the feeling I get from Prichard. And I don’t like it.

So I figure that by the end of this week I will be through with The Black Mountain and then I can either start on the Agatha Christie compilation or on Julius Caesar.

At this point I cannot say that I am particularly looking forward to either. I fear they will suffer from the same issues that The Black Mountain does.

I’m thinking someone should produce audio books by the Simpsons cast. Imagine, if you will, the Simpsons cast doing any Shakespeare play. You would so totally listen to that. Or South Park – I would love to hear Cartman as Hamlet. Absolutely ridiculous – but certainly entertaining. I would even love to hear Cartman as Wolfe – with Stan as Archie and Kyle as Saul and Kenny as Fritz – and Officer Barbrady as Purley Stebbins? Genius.

So if you are out there, oh great Hank, Trey, Matt, Dan and all the others… think about it. I know I would buy them in a heartbeat.