Because last night was so nice, and my bed was so warm, and my week was so long, I decided to write my Friday night blog post this morning.
“Upanishad” is the Hindi word for the scriptures that make up the essentials of the Venanta (the teaching of oneness with the universal being, or Braman.) It means “To sit at the feet of the master” and refers to the traditional way of teaching, the master passing on knowledge to the student by speaking the daily lessons. Books were produced by hand and so were considered priceless, kept well guarded by the temples. For this reason, lessons were passed from generation to generation of monk orally. The advent of the printing press obviously greatly improved the dissemination of information, and the oral tradition died out.
I made the argument recently that audiobooks were just technology picking up where the oral tradition left off. I catch a bit of flack about listening to them, but besides the fact that I can fit 45 minutes to 4 hours a day of “reading” into my schedule, I really enjoy listening to a good audiobook! I can listen to a book while filing at work, driving in my car, doing the grocery shopping or the laundry. Sometimes I just come home and decompress with my headphones on after work, or before I go to sleep.
What a lot of people miss by ragging on audiobooks, is that there is a connection not only to the story, but to the voice of the speaker. I have favorite narrators, just as I have favorite musicians or songs. There’s something soothing about the connection to the speaker that makes the experience unique.
I started thinking about this yesterday as I started “Beloved” by Toni Morrison. It’s narrated by Morrison herself, and while the story itself is gorgeous so far (I’m about 3 hours - or 60 pages - into the story), Morrison’s narration is incredible. Her voice has a buttery, soothing quality, and no one could read the book as well as its creator. Here’s a clip of Toni Morrison discussing her first days of writing, a step on the path that would take her to both the Pulitzer and the Nobel.
I finished “Crime and Punishment” yesterday morning on my way to work. It was loooong… 25 hours, for an unabridged translation of about 560 pages. But it was well worth it, a classic for a reason. The audio version is narrated by George Guidall, who could well be the most prolific narrator out there. There’s a good reason for this. He has this wonderfully gruff, basso voice that warms you right up. I’ve listened to “The Gunslinger” by Stephen King and now “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevky, and both were long but very enjoyable because of the narrator.
Of course I can’t miss mentioning my very first favorite narrator, Nick Landrum. I first became acquainted with his work on the Dexter Series, and although he said he loathes it, his voice really is perfect for the role. It’s quiet, steady cadence lends itself well to the inner monologue of Dexter Morgan, friendly neighborhood serial killer. Landrum has also recorded other titles. I’ve listened to both “The Virgin Suicides” by Jeffrey Eugenides (listen to a sample here), “Sweet and Vicious” by David Schickler. Both were wonderful books, and Landrum’s voice added to the experience.
I’m not saying that every audiobook is for you, or that even these narrators are guaranteed to be your cup of tea, but if you’re one to turn your nose up at audiobooks because you feel like they’re corny, or that you won’t be able to “get into” the story, or that you feel like it’s cheating to say you’ve “read” a book that you’ve listened to (ahem, EDDIE), then take it from me: give them another chance. You just might find that you can fit more stories into your schedule, and that you really enjoy the connection to the story that a good narrator can give you!
My blog posts are starting to resemble rebel-party communiques, written in the dead of night by the feeble illumination of my computer screen, usually after writing a paper of some variety, grocery shopping (which got done at 9:30pm!) and finding a few spare moments to bust chops with the love of my life.
I just climbed into bed and ducked under the covers to read a few pages of “Dexter by Design” when Ed whimpered in his sleep “Did you do a blog post today?”
“Damn it!”
I slinked from beneath the sheets and dragged myself back out to my trusty computer to rattle off a few lines. I don’t really have anything to talk about, so I guess time crunches are my topic of the night. I just passed in an annotated bibliography for one of my courses, and got the shaking finger of disapproval from the electronic upload site because It was “Past the due date” at 12:09am. I emailed it to the teacher directly, with a few wise-cracks about burning the midnight oil to draw his keen eye away from my penchant for late-night cramfests.
So, in the spirit of cramming everything into my day at odd angles, like packing for a vacation at gunpoint… I realized today that with the schedule I keep (full-time job, two classes, writer, and an apparent addiction ot Na:::Whateverthehellitis:::Mo’s, (Nanowrimo, Nablopomo, Script Frenzy… I think I’m going to start “National Pie Baking Month” for June.. what do you think?) that I often have to choose between writing and reading because there just isn’t time. Even writing this post is guaranteeing I wake up a shattered wreck in the morning… my co-workers know that talking before coffee = death. They understand.
Which brings me to my latest way of jamming extra stuff into my life. For a while I’ve been doing most of my “reading” by audiobook. I listen to them in the car for the morning and evening commute, sitting in my car snarfing a sandwich at lunch. I actually listened to my current selection tonight while grocery shopping. How’s that for multitasking!
I get no small amount of teasing my audiobook love… Ed contents he doesn’t count it as reading… Beth calls it “Ristening”… I used to get a fare amount of well-intentioned jibed that I didn’t make time to sit down with an ACTUAL book, and not do any of the other things I have to do. I got a fair amount of crap for being an English student who has no time for anything but assigned books. So this year I decided “Hell, you know what? They’re right!” and made my new year’s resolution to read/listen to a book a week this year, no matter what I had to do to accomplish it. I love to read, but got away from it in my working years because there just isn’t enough time. I’m not one of these people who can read two pages at a time and be satisfied. I read “The DaVinci Code” in a single eight-hour sitting. During my job-hunt last year, I was at home one afternoon and cracked open “Love in the Time of Cholera”, finally looking up five hours later realizing I was getting hungry. I’m a marathoner when it comes to reading, so I hadn’t been making the time to do it. But that changed this year.
What got me back into reading in a big way, was writing my first novel in 2007. I wanted to be a better writer, and nothing will hone your skills by immersing yourself in the writing styles of lots of other authors. I started saying to hell with the dishes and the laundry while I was writing, and then editing, and now that’s sort of carrying over into my reading goals for the year. My house looks like it belongs to that flaky writer chick from the remake of “The Stepford Wives”, and my fridge varies between a black hole and a science experiment- but damn, I’m on my 20th book of the year, I am editing at lunch, reading in the bath, shopping at the end of the night, and blogging way the hell after my bedtime.
Some people know how to turn a dollar into two. I can turn an hour into three.
About the author
I’m a writer, artist and degenerate internet addict. I have a day job only to keep the lights on and the internet working. I’m not always PG, but I’m always A+ (not to mention humble.) Please do not try to make me think before coffee. It will only end in tears.
