The Two Towers, Abridg'd
Gimli: 'I don't wish to meet that old man at unawares without an argument ready to hand, that's all. Let's go!'
Does that look wrong? Or more precisely, sound wrong?
I enjoyed the audio book version of The Fellowship of the Ring quite a lot. Reader Rob Inglis has a reasonable range of voices -- nowhere near Luke Daniels, who reads Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles, but that's a very high bar. So I expected to like his reading of The Two Towers.
But I keep getting thrown out of the story. He keeps altering the text, including the dialogue, by using contractions. Frequently.
By some lights I'm something of a purist with regard to Tolkien, no question. I was lukewarm on Jackson's version of FotR, disliked TTT, and have seen only a few minutes of his RotK -- which was enough to confirm my decision to give it a miss. I've seen most of the first Hobbit movie, at home for free while I was working on something, so it wasn't completely lost time. That convinced me that Jackson has no sense with regard to sacrificing plot in favour of ludicrous action sequences. I saw a few bits of the second Hobbit movie a couple of days ago, and that was enough; I was shrieking in laughter at the fight sequence with the Dwarves barrelling down the river, and the melting of the "gold" in Moria. I don't know what that stuff was, but it wasn't gold. Negligible specific heat and heat of fusion; low melting point.
But this audio book's problem is subtler... "just" contractions. But Tolkien was very careful about character voice. Some characters speak casually, some always formally, and some change their style of speech depending on circumstance. To chuck that out is wrong; it significantly affects the characterization. For Gimli to say "That's all. Let's go!" just knots up my neck and shoulder muscles. It's fingernails-on-blackboard stuff, full-on "uncanny valley", who-are-you-and-where-is-the-real-Gimli material.
*sigh*
Does that look wrong? Or more precisely, sound wrong?
I enjoyed the audio book version of The Fellowship of the Ring quite a lot. Reader Rob Inglis has a reasonable range of voices -- nowhere near Luke Daniels, who reads Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles, but that's a very high bar. So I expected to like his reading of The Two Towers.
But I keep getting thrown out of the story. He keeps altering the text, including the dialogue, by using contractions. Frequently.
By some lights I'm something of a purist with regard to Tolkien, no question. I was lukewarm on Jackson's version of FotR, disliked TTT, and have seen only a few minutes of his RotK -- which was enough to confirm my decision to give it a miss. I've seen most of the first Hobbit movie, at home for free while I was working on something, so it wasn't completely lost time. That convinced me that Jackson has no sense with regard to sacrificing plot in favour of ludicrous action sequences. I saw a few bits of the second Hobbit movie a couple of days ago, and that was enough; I was shrieking in laughter at the fight sequence with the Dwarves barrelling down the river, and the melting of the "gold" in Moria. I don't know what that stuff was, but it wasn't gold. Negligible specific heat and heat of fusion; low melting point.
But this audio book's problem is subtler... "just" contractions. But Tolkien was very careful about character voice. Some characters speak casually, some always formally, and some change their style of speech depending on circumstance. To chuck that out is wrong; it significantly affects the characterization. For Gimli to say "That's all. Let's go!" just knots up my neck and shoulder muscles. It's fingernails-on-blackboard stuff, full-on "uncanny valley", who-are-you-and-where-is-the-real-Gimli material.
*sigh*