Exciting discovery....
I've recently discovered Audible. The bait was a free unabridged reading of Persuasion in MP3 for downloading. then I paid £7.99 and downloaded Canterbury tales (in preparation for our tackling that book as we work through Omnibus 2 which we are due to begin after Christmas) and 'Our Mutual Friend' - 36 hours of reading, what a delight. I LOVE the way Dickens crafts sentences. There are passages which one would about fall asleep if one had to READ them which can be listened to effortlessly. Those bits which are excellent (interview between Lizzy and Mr Headstone, visit of Weg to Mr Venus etc etc) are a delight to listen to again and again. I have to admit that I enjoy long sentences and am naughtily encouraged to extend my sentences when I've listened to Dickens. The TV production, long though it was, has left out many delightful passages and 'thoughts' along with other clues which go to make the story a bit clearer. I still dont' really understand how Noddy Boffin could be 'pretending' in his miserly phase nor how Bella Wilfur could marry the secretary and be validly married when he was using an assumed name to test her before revealing that he was really John Harman. Victoria had me up at 4am this mng and it was delightful to be able to get back to the book. Meanwhile (since I have to play it on my laptop) I end up reviewing some of the highlights of the year as the slideshow presents itself untiringly.
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''As I walked through the wilderness of this world...'' I often feel I am no more nor less than the product of the books I have read - most notably, the Bible - and the people I meet.
3 comments:
It is simply a fantastic lie, in my opinion, when grammarians, street urchins and the like (I got that from Calvin) say you can’t have long sentences with run-on sentences and thing that make it really difficult to comprehend what the author is, or is not, saying, or for less gifted writers, trying to say, for what would people like Cicero have said if you had refused to keep reading after 30 lines of the same sentence – not that you would actually answer back anyway because he kept the subject back until the end since in Latin you are able to mess around with the word order as much as you like, so my Latin instructor says.
If you were try to break down well-written long sentences into today's acceptable standard (seemingly somewhere between 5 and 7 words) it would be impossible to communicate the same ideas. At the same time it would read like a 'reading book' for a 6-y-old (and some of them are pretty chronic!).
and another thing.... After about 34 hours of listening I arrived at the part of the story where John brings Bella to the Boffins for the discovery of the truth. She faints at the door and is carried in (sure proof that, as I suspected, she waslked out of the house LEAVING THE BABY!!!). Dickens, obviously realising that the story couldn't be complete without the 'inexhaustable' being there to wave chubby fists has her suddenly appearing 'suspended by unseen hands' to be taken up by her adoring mother and go on to make her contribution to the scene! No explanation of the mothers 'forgetfulness' or 'neglect' and, wonderfully, no explanation of the invisible hand supporing, after presumably transporting, the infant!!! Wonderful - just the thing to have wafting through ones head when one has insufficient strength for ANYTHING else. It cured me of my illness (almost) entirely!
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