The New York Times discusses the problems of translating print books to audiobooks [free reg. yadda yadda yadda], in particular the difficulty of texts by authors such as David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Susanna Clarke, which may include footnotes, intentionally blank pages, diagrams, and sketches.
When David Foster Wallace, reading the audiobook version of his newly published collection of essays, "Consider the Lobster" (Time Warner AudioBooks), hits one of its many footnotes, listeners may be inclined to adjust the volume - his voice sounds suddenly distant, as if he has fallen down a well. Then, footnote finished, his voice returns just as abruptly to normal. But don't touch the dial. The voice manipulation, for which audiobook producer John Runnette used a "phone filter" - a voice-through-the-receiver effect used in radio dramas - was an attempt to aurally convey Mr. Wallace's discursive, densely footnoted prose.
Or as he says in the audiobook introduction: "I sometimes use footnotes in these essays, which presents kind of a nasty problem for an audiobook: where do the footnotes go? There is no bottom of the page in an audiobook, obviously."
I've never been a big fan of most audiobooks, which tend (to me) to occupy a weird immersive space, somewhere awkward between a simple visual text and a performance. With a visual text such as a printed book, there's more user control. I can skim, skip back and forth, and pause easily to shift to another task if I want to. With a performance--a video, a movie, or even an audio play with multiple players, sound f/x, etc.--I let myself be completely immersed, long-term, in the experience. Each experience is at the opposite end of McLuhan's cold/hot media distinction.
But right now, for example, I'm listening to Pratchett's popular audiobook, "The Wee Free Men," which I downloaded from Audible about four months ago but have yet to get through. I think it's because, as an audio track, I tend to try to listen to it like I'd listen to iTunes--in the background, while I work on other things. Tony Robinson's reading is lively and interesting, but it's still not working for me. I listen for thirty seconds, then drift away to some other task: checking email, browsing RSS feeds, letting the (damned) cat out, writing a weblog post in MarsEdit. Boom, I've missed a minute and a half of the story and I have to struggle to re-orient myself to the storyline. I don't feel like I've gained anything by having the book converted from visual text to sound: I'd rather just read it myself. (And there are exceptions--I didn't have any problems with the audio version of David Cross' "Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!" either because it allowed me to be off-task for short periods without losing a plotline, or because Cross's performance was such a big part of the thing that a purely textual version wouldn't have been nearly as funny. A written version would lose, for example, the subtle gradations of tone in Cross's voice that allow listeners to "read" his misanthropic humor as ironic rather than straight.)
I suppose it's a sign of inflexibility on my part, being incapable of changing my own habits to adapt to new technologies. (Robinson's going on now about zoology, and I have no idea what the point is....) Soon, I'll be complaining about how instant messenger ruins writing ability. (l8r.)
Posted by johndanseven at January 21, 2006 11:06 AM