I am curious about...
...audio books.
I know some of you use them, mostly while driving or doing chores, and they always make me wonder, whenver I seee them on display at amazon...
To me reading is a silent, solitary, unique activity. When I'm reading I'm free from the rest of the world, I tend to inmerse myself on the reading and concentrate on it. I am not sure that I would like to "listen" to a book, because I believe I would lose concentration and would miss the important parts, or the meaning of the words, or the beauty of the prose...
Lately I've been reading a couple of books on writing and reading by Urusla K Le Guin, and one of the essays that kept me wondering was precisely the one about oral transmission. She defends the oral transmission and the pleasure of reading aloud, and listening to a tale told aloud, and reflects on how culture, myths and values have been transmitted orally in many places, an how important story telling is for many cultures.
I've already pondered about that, in my experiences with altiplano communities and nomadic shepherds I read LoTR and the Silm aloud to my sister when she was a child, (she is almost seventeen years younger than me) and she always says that it was a wonderful experience, but I do not think that I would change the feeling of awe and emotion that I still remember from the first time I read both books ( the intimacy between me, my couch and the fascinating tales) for the shared emotion with an audience or with a reader. I enjoy commenting loved stories with other people, but to me reading is a solitary and silent pleasure. Le Guin maintains that reading silently and on your own is a "vice" and prejudice born out in the late nineteenth century and in the educated elites. Don't know. Maybe that is it, reading to me is finding much needed solitude, and listening to a tale told aloud is like listening to a conversation or a conference, when my attention tends to wander, no matter how important it is to me...
So how about you? What are the good points you find in audiobooks? (apart from allowing you to follow a story while doing a different thing) You like them or are just a needed substitute due to lack of time? I'm really curious about that.
.
I know some of you use them, mostly while driving or doing chores, and they always make me wonder, whenver I seee them on display at amazon...
To me reading is a silent, solitary, unique activity. When I'm reading I'm free from the rest of the world, I tend to inmerse myself on the reading and concentrate on it. I am not sure that I would like to "listen" to a book, because I believe I would lose concentration and would miss the important parts, or the meaning of the words, or the beauty of the prose...
Lately I've been reading a couple of books on writing and reading by Urusla K Le Guin, and one of the essays that kept me wondering was precisely the one about oral transmission. She defends the oral transmission and the pleasure of reading aloud, and listening to a tale told aloud, and reflects on how culture, myths and values have been transmitted orally in many places, an how important story telling is for many cultures.
I've already pondered about that, in my experiences with altiplano communities and nomadic shepherds I read LoTR and the Silm aloud to my sister when she was a child, (she is almost seventeen years younger than me) and she always says that it was a wonderful experience, but I do not think that I would change the feeling of awe and emotion that I still remember from the first time I read both books ( the intimacy between me, my couch and the fascinating tales) for the shared emotion with an audience or with a reader. I enjoy commenting loved stories with other people, but to me reading is a solitary and silent pleasure. Le Guin maintains that reading silently and on your own is a "vice" and prejudice born out in the late nineteenth century and in the educated elites. Don't know. Maybe that is it, reading to me is finding much needed solitude, and listening to a tale told aloud is like listening to a conversation or a conference, when my attention tends to wander, no matter how important it is to me...
So how about you? What are the good points you find in audiobooks? (apart from allowing you to follow a story while doing a different thing) You like them or are just a needed substitute due to lack of time? I'm really curious about that.
.