I just finished Stardust and loved it. I listen to the audio and I am really glad I did. It was narrated by Neil Gaiman and he did an excellent job. The CD included an interview with him and he had some very interesting comments to make about the creation of the story and also about the audio.
He had two very important points to make about an author-narrated CD. He feels that in a story, the author and the reader actually engage in a co-creation effort where the story is as much an imagined event in the mind of the reader which may be quite different than what the author was envisioning. A CD read by the author gives you a unique opportunity to hear the story the way the author interprets it. I should add that Gaiman doesn't just recite the book but actually acts out the parts verbally.
His second point is that the audio forces you the listen to all the words the author wrote. He said he chooses his words carefully and they all have meaning or some sort of relevance to the story. When people read a book, they tend to skim over descriptive sections and move forward to the dialog or plot enhancement sections. In an audio book you have to listen to all these words and don't miss any of them. He said he noticed this because he listens to CD books when he is driving long distances and, though he had read Huckleberry Finn, it was by hearing it read that he came to really appreciate the book.
This may be why I couldn't get into Eragon. I took the CDs out of the library and started listening to it. You speed readers probably skip all the descriptive material that bogs down this book. For you the story was the dialog and the plot highlights. It was probably a great story. I had to listen to the endless strings of descriptive adjectives and adverbs that went nowhere and added nothing. By the end of the second chapter, I had lost my incentive to go further.
I liked the Stardust CD so much that I would like to hear some of Gaiman's other books read by him. Stardust is the first book by him that I have read. I was wondering if some people in the group could recommend another good book by him.
I am now watching the movie again. It is very different from the book (it is essentially a totally different version of the same core story) but it is a delight all on its own.
Message Edited by Nadine on 02-11-2009 01:53 PM
