I sometimes feel a little sad about books like The Scarlet Letter (and I consider The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the same camp): they are such amazing novels, but people often first (and only) encounter them as assigned reading in high school, when many of us are probably too young to appreciate them or their radicalness. Part of me is sad that I'm not discovering The Scarlet Letter for the first time as an adult; but part of me is glad that it's possible to rediscover a book and find it so different after so many years, largely because one's self is so different in so many ways. And yet there's also the sense of the familiar: I remember particular sentences from my first reading of The Scarlett Letter in 1985! And I even remember where in my parents' house I was sitting when I read them.
12/20: spoken word & rediscovery
I really enjoy live reading-aloud, but I often have trouble with audiobook recordings. I get impatient. My mind wanders. I don't know what to do with the rest of myself as I'm listening. But I downloaded The Scarlet Letter for my iPod, and I've been enjoying listening to it as I've been walking this week. Maybe it's ushering in a new era of audiobook wonderfulness for me. (I hope so.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I love audiobooks. I reserve them for when I'm driving because, like you, I can't just sit and listen and if I listen when I'm in bed I invariably fall asleep. My one absolute criterion is that the audiobook be unabridged.
Post a Comment