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Friday July 31, 2020
Books in July
- Autumn by Ali Smith
[read by Melody Grove ]
This is a wonderful book. I did not rush into reading it as I expected it to be a work of mind-expanding well-written prose and thus a worthy but difficult read - well it was the former but not the latter. The writer wanted to explore how we experience time - which is wholly subjective and a topic that has often interested me. I'm a hopeless descriptive writer so read the Guardian review. In terms of its intellectual content - it raised my curiosity to go and find out more about sixties pop-artist Pauline Boty - and look at her work (on line); I had never heard of her, and, while I am not the world's greatest culture vulture, I think that underlines just one of the many points that Smith was making. [Her character's attempts to have a typically misogynistic art school lecturer accept Boty as a subject for a dissertation seem to me to hint at personal experience].
As is often the case, I listened to this book and the language is so beautiful, it really lent itself to being spoken aloud and Melody Grove did so perfectly (melodically). There were many political views expressed which resonated with me and some reflective passages with lyrical repetitive almost poetry that I found both sharp and moving:
All across the country, people felt it was the wrong thing. All across the country, people felt it was the right thing. All across the country, people felt they'd really lost. All across the country, people felt they'd really won. All across the country, people felt they'd done the right thing and other people had done the wrong thing.....
....All across the country, people felt legitimised. All across the country, people felt bereaved and shocked. All across the country, people felt righteous. All across the country, people felt sick. All across the country, people felt history at their shoulder. All across the country, people felt history meant nothing. All across the country, people felt like they counted for nothing. All across the country, people had pinned their hopes on it. - Meet Me/Murder/Missing/Midnight (all) In Malmo
by Torquil MacLeod [Read by Marguerite Gavin]
I have considered before that it may be wrong of me to judge a book solely on the basis of its delivery in the spoken word. I have been aware that a good narrator can really alter the perception of a story from ordinary to outstanding, by almost acting quality narrators such as Christian Rodska, or Mark Billingham - and also, of course, some books are better suited to being read aloud than others, such as The Moonstone (which is written, and delivered, in different voices); a number of books have the benefit of being read by their authors, which means they are spoken in the way they were intended by the author, such as Helen Macdonald, or Rory McGrath. Sadly, this was not the case with these books and negatively influenced my whole perception of them.
They are defnitely good mystery stories with a plausibly written heroine detective which realistically describes her home and working life and relationships, but any proper judgement of their worth was hindered in the extreme by the narration. Often, while listening through the peculiar pronunciations and incorrect stressing, I felt the language would have been much more natural and realistic if being read on the page. As it was, it sounded like it was being read by someone for whom English was not her first language, practicing for an elocution exam. On top of the issues with the straight reading of the English, the narrator was called upon to - or felt bound to - try and deliver both Scottish and Jordy acccents which is a tall order for any actor, and what she came up with would have been funny if not so annoying.
Although this is very damning, I see (frankly, to my amazement) that Marguerite Gavin has won various awards for her narrations and "disappears as the narrator, letting the story take the limelight" - which I suppose is true in that she added nothing - especially in terms of delivering dialogue with any realistic intonation. However it seems my opinions are not shared by all in that she has a "devoted fan following". All I can say in her favour is that her voice is pleasant, ("sonorous" apparently), and her diction is very clear, so it might suit listeners for whom English is not their first language.
A Doubtful Death
Return of the loveably louche actor-cum-amateur detective: to his horror, Charles has landed a role, in a re-imagining of Hamlet in an immersive production by a high-concept theatre group in Oxford. When the actress playing Ophelia goes missing, in between rehearsals with puppeteers and mime artists, Charles decides to find out what has happened to her.
Based on Simon Brett's novel, once again brilliantly adapted by Jeremy Front, and starring Bill Nighy, Suzanne Burden, Jon Glover, Jessica Turner, Scarlett Courtney, Ian Conningham, Will Kirk, and Lucy Reynolds. Directed by Sally Avens.
Posted by Christina at 11:04 AM. Category: Books of the Month
