After being disappointed by the movie, I thought I'd give the book a quick a do-over. An intern suggested something better, he told me to listen to the audiobook series . He says its a better experience.
And I quite agree. It is better in terms of content because it is the whole book after all., but what's more, you get the feel for the story, the pacing, each character's emotion while retaining the magic of it all. Now if you're never tried audiobooks, it could get disconcerting at first, hard to keep your attention on it. I for one can't get the hang of audio books in the past, I keep having to rewind because I can't keep track of it, but not this one.
Jim Dale, the reader of this book, is so good that you will not only enjoy listening, you actually get a feel for the whole thing! He has voices for each character (that he doesn't get mixed up) and are quite good fits too. In fact he acts a lot of the characters better than the actors in the movie itself! You will have to use your imagination a bit though, but JK Rowling is pretty good in describing her scenes that its not so hard. And you get the benefits of the better written dialogues in the book too.
The only drawback is the length of the book. It takes 18 hours to finish The Half-blood Prince alone. Not that you wont enjoy every minute of it. I certainly did. Just a matter of finding something to do with it that doesn't require much thought, like exercising for one. Might even help you get fitter.
And I quite agree. It is better in terms of content because it is the whole book after all., but what's more, you get the feel for the story, the pacing, each character's emotion while retaining the magic of it all. Now if you're never tried audiobooks, it could get disconcerting at first, hard to keep your attention on it. I for one can't get the hang of audio books in the past, I keep having to rewind because I can't keep track of it, but not this one.
Jim Dale, the reader of this book, is so good that you will not only enjoy listening, you actually get a feel for the whole thing! He has voices for each character (that he doesn't get mixed up) and are quite good fits too. In fact he acts a lot of the characters better than the actors in the movie itself! You will have to use your imagination a bit though, but JK Rowling is pretty good in describing her scenes that its not so hard. And you get the benefits of the better written dialogues in the book too.
The only drawback is the length of the book. It takes 18 hours to finish The Half-blood Prince alone. Not that you wont enjoy every minute of it. I certainly did. Just a matter of finding something to do with it that doesn't require much thought, like exercising for one. Might even help you get fitter.
9 comments:
I've never tried audiobooks---never even thought of buying one. But maybe now that my eyesight went bad because of years of reading under faint light or in a moving vehicle, audiobooks seem good. Maybe I'd go for Lord f the Rings because reading the book makes me feel sleepy. Never went past page 10.
Haven't tried audio books yet, but my brother is a big fan.
I hope they come up with an audio book of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. That'll be a hoot. =)
I've never really finished other audiobooks except Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" (which was pretty good, bonus is Neil actually read it, and he's not a bad reader at all!) because the success of audiobooks are directly related to it's reader. So I'm not so sure about LOTR or Alice in Wonderland hehe
@Kat: That is the problem of LOTR I guess, the descriptions are too detailed, which might've been perfect then because they didn't have TV, but boring now. It was pretty good a couple of chapters in though.
@Andy: Never read that, how different is it with Lewis Caroll's version?
I think I'll fall asleep when I'll try to listen to those. :(
I adored Coraline... thank you for recommending it! I'm not a huge fan of the HP books, though I did enjoy the first 4. I guess an audio book may be the way to go if I ever want to experience the 6th book in prose, lol.
Haven't read it too. The screenplay of Burton's film, written by Linda Woolverton, is based on the original. Alice returns to wonderland seven years after her first visit. Sounds good.
I should try this one then..tho' im not that book-worm type, but I believe on JK.
hi man, hope to see u again..
BRB :D
I didn't really enjoy the movie that much. I felt like there were parts in the book but should've been in the movie and then there were some things in the movie that were too overplayed (ehem, Harry-Ginny thing). :p
By the way, I moved my blog to its own domain! :) It's now at www.quintessentialbabble.com
Hope you can relink it! Thanks! :)
@Lester: I suppose if you're not into these type of books, then it won't help regardless of the medium.
@Lizz: Yeah, just loved Coraline! It was both creepy and fun to hear hehe
@Andy: Wow, that does sound interesting.
@AJ: Give it a shot, its pretty fun once you get pass the accent and stuff.
@austenfan: Congratulations! :)
Post a Comment