Sense and Sensibility started

[asterroc]

seekingferret will be interested to know that, as predicted, I don't actually much mind "Sense and Sensibility" (that is, the writing style) in audiobook format. I'm on Chapter 9 right now, and while I will admit that the first two chapters with their plethora of characters were a bit confusing, but when I've done Jane Austen books in the past I found them ridiculously dry and boring. While some of the change may come from increasing maturity on my part, I really do think most of the difference is the audiobook format. If an audiobook is slightly dry, I can tune out and listen with half an ear, doing something else like washing dishes or knitting, and come back in when it gets more interesting.

This particular production (the male Libravox narrator) leaves a bit to be desired, in that it's distributed as a podcast (so my iPod stops at the end of each installation, which is a chapter, around every 10-15 minutes), each "episode" starts with a 30-second boilerplate, and the narrator's voice is relatively toneless, but it is not bad - in fact I would call it a couple small steps above tolerable.

So, I don't much mind the writing style (though I probably would not choose a repeat of this author, I can definitely get through this book), but I have to say the content is somewhat boring. It's a pre-women's lib. soap opera. Maybe it'll get better, we'll see.

Comments

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Don't know if you're aware, but you can set podcasts to avoid the auto-stopping at the end of each installment. Select the individual file, go to "Get Info => Options" and deselect "Skip while shuffling."

Deselecting this will mean that your audiobooks will sometimes wander into your regular music if you just put your iPod's audio contents on shuffle, but you can get around this by making playlists (and judicious use of the Skip Track feature). I've found turning this feature off to be incredibly helpful for listening to audiobooks and podcasts.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

Jane Austen is a little more subtle than that. I suspect her enduring popularity comes in part from the soap opera element, but she has two things that redeem her. First, an incredibly sharp observational eye. She draws her characters in amazingly realistic and believable ways because she knows the one or two details, the single line of dialogue, that will instantly paint a picture for the reader. Her characterizations are amazingly deep and I think this is why people can get so sucked into identifying with her heroines.

Second, a powerful and relentless wit. The thing about Austen novels is that they are very, very funny at all times. She makes fun of EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING about the cultural and social foibles of her characters. And she does it as well as anybody, as well as Swift or Carlin or Shakespeare (Yes, that's my comic pantheon. Wanna make something of it?).

Beyond these basic characteristics of her writing that elevate it beyond mere soap opera, I'm hesitant to agree with you that the novel is 'Pre-Women's Lib". Austen's novels are at their core economic narratives about the plight of women of the era, and they feature powerful and noble women who sometimes refuse to defer to the men in their lives, sometimes to their cost. There is a strong feminist narrative here and it's really not that hard to find.

I do agree that the boilerplate at the beginning of chapters at Librivox is a tad annoying, but I don't find it too intolerable. Possibly the problem is that the chapters in Sense and Sensibility are shorter than the chapters in Ulysses, which is the Librivox audiobook I listened to.