words and images

My parents had a prejudice against music videos when I was growing up at least in part because they claimed the videos put an image in your head of “the one way” a song should be visualized. And songs “should” be open to interpretation. 

Perhaps.

(I’m not a fan of the word “should,” btw. It’s almost as bad as the word “was.” See elsewhere for my rant on that topic. )

In like mind, though, I nearly always make my children read the book first before watching a movie so they can experience the contours of the world in their own imagination before it’s engrained in their consciousness. I mean, does anyone picture Hogwarts looking any different than it does in the movies?

And it’s with this same prejudice that I put off listening to audiobooks. That, and they seemed really long and expensive.

No more.

I’m a diehard audiobook fiend. And they’re worth whatever I spend on Audible for the hours of enjoyment they bring me.

Besides the purely practical reason (for a booklover, at least) that audiobooks allow me to read more books in a day since I can listen while driving or folding laundry or doing the dishes, I’ve fallen in love with the skill of narration. And while certainly with a few audiobooks I’ve associated the narrator with the character voice such that the narrator is the ONLY version of that character (because it’s so good), for the most part, I don’t. For the most part, I just hear the words spoken as storytelling rather than the one and only portrayal of the narrator/character, if that makes sense.

But.

I had the experience recently of listening to my own audiobook for Boy on a Train, and I had an entirely different experience.

That of feeling like they made it real.

This is what I wrote to the production company:

[The narrators’] performance rounded the book out. Gave it texture and curves that aren't on the page. I feel like they gave it an undefinable quality it didn't have before. As I said [before], they made it better than I wrote it.

Do you listen to audiobooks? If so, do you think the narrator is the character or the narrator? 

And here’s the link to the preorder audio of Boy on a Train: Audio: https://amzn.to/39nJcy3

https://www.audible.com/pd/Boy-on-a-Train-Audiobook/B08TQ64V3V