If you've read Dune... conversations?

[asterroc]

I am currently listening to an unabridged audiobook¹ of Frank Herbert's Dune with a full cast doing the different characters. I am wondering about the editorial/production choice to have a full cast, and about the claim of unabridged.

The conversations as read have very little "Paul said," "Jessica replied" sort of commentary. They tend to be only what the individual people actually said. For example, if Jessica were and Paul were talking about his homework over breakfast, and Leto walked in in the middle of it...

"So did you finish your homework last night?"
"Very quickly, it was just algebra."
"And what did you learn from it?"
"If you drop a book from the top of a building, its motion is governed by a quadratic equation."
"That isn't what I was taught, since you also have to take air friction into account."
"But you can simplify the equations if you make the assumption that there isn't any air friction."
"And we haven't gotten up to air friction yet."²

In the audio book, since there are three different readers for the lines said by Paul, Jessica, and Leto, it is obvious who said what, but there aren't any "Leto walked into the conversation and commented that..." that in a print version of the book would indicate who said what in a long exchange, or if three people are involved in the conversation. Is this lack of "Paul said" actually in the original text, or was there an editorial decision to remove those? If the original text did not include any "Paul said"s, that would explain the production choice to have a cast.

And while I'm asking, is there a name for doing "Paul said"s, or for not doing them?

¹The production is copyright 2007 Audio Renaissance, and narrated by a cast listed on Audible.com as Scott Brick, Orlagh Cassidy, Euan Morton,and Simon Vance, but possibly including more.
²In case you're curious, my intent here was for the speakers to be JPJPLJP, though the last L and J could be swapped and still have it make sense.

Comments

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I don't have my copy with me, so I don't remember if that's consistent with the book or not.

Although, you know, I'd hope that if it truly is an "unabridged" version that it would be word-for-word the same text.

I do recall that there were a fair number of lines that were thought rather than spoken. How are they dealing with that?

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

I can't find my copy offhand and I don't remember.

[datan0de.livejournal.com]

I read Dune about 25 years ago, so I'm af, raid I can't say one way the another. However, I'd LOVE to know which performance of Dune you're listening to and what you think of it! Like the above comment though, I remember that a LOT of the book focused on what people we're thinking, rather than what was actually spoken.

If your audiobook is unabridged and well done, please let me know. femetal is always looking for a good audiobook!

[freakylynx.livejournal.com]

Been awhile since I've read the books but I do remember a number of conversations where I had to re-read them to make sure I knew who was saying what :P

[rosefox]

And while I'm asking, is there a name for doing "Paul said"s, or for not doing them?

They're called dialogue tags.

[femetal.livejournal.com]

Just flipping through my copy, it looks like there are several two-party conversations that alternate back and forth for a page or more without any dialogue tags. It also looks like any conversations with more than two participants rely heavily on dialogue tags to avoid ambiguity (almost every line has "she said", "Paul said", etc)

I'd think that it's safe to drop any dialogue tags which have no other information when producing a "full cast recording", because the tags actually make the material far more cumbersome in that case. However, in cases where the tags give away moods, tone, actions, etc, it seems important to me that they be included for an "unabridged" label to be accurate. Of course, from an entirely purist standpoint, no "unabridged" title should have a single word omitted, but as a purist, I wouldn't accept a full-cast recording anyway, because the actors have too much influence over interpretation of tone. This is one of the reasons I love author-read material, though most authors make *very* poor readers (Scott Sigler being an exception.)

Also, I, too, was bothered by the treatment that Quicksilver received, though I never read the original, so perhaps the omission is justified, provided it doesn't claim to be unabridged (I try to avoid abridged titles, but I might have bought this one before I realized that it was.) There are some portions of some books that, while I'll read the book over and over, I will skip certain sections because I can't bear to slog through them another time. (Atlas Shrugged is the prime example.)

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

Could you list some of the audiobooks you enjoyed lately. I'm going through them too quickly and have to rely heavily on other's suggestions. I often think some of the best books I've read were word-of-mouth suggestions.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Well, it looks like folks have beaten me to the Dune punch, alas! I'm curious to hear what you think; Dune is one of my Very Favorite Books and I love discussing it.