Reading sound [sic]
On audiobooks, the involuntary snobbery of book fetishists, and (some) authors as terrible narrators
Everything has already been invented…
The year of our Lord 2024 was the year I rediscovered audiobooks. I wish I could say there was method behind this turn of events, but the truth is that Spotify started to offer them as part of their premium plan, and this is the only reason I ended up listening to some books at the gym, ruining authors’ livelihoods just as I’ve been ruining musicians’ for over a decade. As you know, and if you don’t you’ll know soon, I find the audiobook medium perfectly suited to non-fiction. Fiction? No, thanks — my attention span is too short, my imagination anaemic, and I rarely read fiction anyway.
Earlier I said “rediscovered” audiobooks, and this wasn’t a typo. When I was a kid, in the early 80s in Argentina, there was a short-lived sonic-literary affair called Musicuentos, published by a long gone press called Editorial Viscontea. These Musicuentos comprised a set featuring a vinyl record with a short story1 performed by actors, accompanied by an illustrated book with the text and some colourful pictures.2 Most were classic fables, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, The Nightingale, Snow White, and Tom Thumb, among other terrifying or depressing children tales. There was the physical element of the actual book that edged the Musicuentos closer to the audiobook than, say, to The Archers; in other words, these were stories you could listen to and read along with, not your average radio drama.
These ancient LPs were the first thing that came to mind when the audiobook hype began. I suppose that, to some extent, once the technology existed to record a long-form book, it was just a matter of putting two and two together.3 Credit to whoever did the maths. Audiobooks are arguably the only thing the publishing industry has got right since the invention of the printing press.4
But…
Yes, audiobooks are great, but they have their problems too.
First of all, they’ve given an excuse for book fetishists to say very silly things. The silliest one that comes to mind — one I’ve lately seen making the rounds online — is that listening to an audiobook is a form of reading. This is so ridiculous that I don’t know where to begin. So I won’t begin. Instead, let me tell you where I think this nonsense originates: in book fetishists’ need to broadcast anti-elitism. What some people are trying to say, correctly, is that audiobooks aren’t lesser than real books. The problem is that because these people idealise books and reading so much, they turn listening into reading in the process. If they stopped idealising books for a moment, if they saw books as just one way among many of transmitting and acquiring information, then there’d be no need to argue that this or that other medium is as good as books. But when you believe that every book is worthy of respect for the simple reason that it is a book, that books are superior to other ways of storing and transmitting information, that reading is sacred, well, then you end up saying foolish things to avoid being accused of snobbery.5
The other problem with audiobooks is that writers are often poor performers. And by “often” I mean “very often”. I have experienced this poverty in many reading events and academic conferences (the horror… the horror…), and now I’m suffering it through audiobooks. This week, I started a very promising book on Western mysticism, only to abandon it after just one chapter, because I couldn’t bear to listen to the monotonous voice of the author (and narrator) for another minute. I was very interested in the subject, but I felt like I was doing a disservice to this book, nodding off on the treadmill while listening to this gentleman’s drone. Not only was I doing a disservice to an interesting book, but this kind of hypnosis is dangerous: you don’t want to fall asleep while jogging.
I guess that if audiobooks continue to grow in popularity, if more publishers start to embrace them, then writers will have to pick up another set of skills and learn how to properly read for an audience. I mean, how anyone can become a published author without being a good performer is something I can’t comprehend, but that’s where we are.6
Someone should publish an audiobook dealing with this most important of topics. An audiobook we can all read.
PS: By the way, here’s a winter playlist for you…
“Cuento” means “short story” in Spanish.
I believe these LPs were the Argentinean version of the Italian Fiabe Sonore, originally published by Fratelli Fabri Editori, from the mid 60s until the early 70s. I don’t know if anything of this kind existed in English, or other languages. Please enlighten me on anything similar you may have encountered.
Since a regular 12-inch vinyl record holds fifty minutes of audio, you’d need between ten and fifteen LPs for the average non-fiction book.
What about ebooks, you might say… Yes, very nice format, especially when you can find them for free online, but physical books are better, and this is a hill I’m willing to die on. Still, in the interest of fairness, let me list what I think are their pros and cons. Pros: cheaper (or free); they occupy less space; they are easier to handle and less tiring to hold (especially doorstoppers). Cons: many ebooks are formatted poorly, as if by monkeys or lesser mammals; you can’t write on them with a normal pen or pencil; they lack the physical memory that come with paper books: with paper you can often remember the approximate location of what you read — whether it was near the beginning, middle, or end of the book, the position on the page, etc… Do I read ebooks? Yes, I do! But I still prefer to read on paper when possible.
And as I have said here before to the point of exhaustion, there is nothing wrong with being a snob. Criticism demands red lines, even if we don’t agree on where to draw them. Be a snob! Shit on books and genres you hate! What’s more, the idea that all books are equally worthy of respect and appreciation is an insult to good books. Anyone trying to save all books from the bonfire is guilty of letting all books burn as equals. Choose which books you’ll save from the bonfire, kids… Choose your battles… And thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
I’m guilty of slagging off poets in this space, not because I don’t like poetry, but because it’s always fun to tease people likely to bite the hook. However, reading live is something most poets do a lot better than serious writers.