Reading Jane Austen in a British Accent

My First Audio Book Experience - Sense and Sensibility

I'm a fairly ardent reader and consider myself, at least compared to those around me, more interested in the pursuit of the fictional world through literature. On my to-read list, there are two sections that I have found are tougher  to check off than the others.  One is those of books which I know I really ought to read but the writing style, the length of the books combined with my lifestyle has been deterring me. The second of the two is a list of my favourite books. These are the ones I wish to read again and several times after that but because there is always so much great old and new unread material out there one feels one must prioritise these things better.

Therefore, for someone like me, whose day is inclusive of sitting in front of a screen for hours at a stretch and walking the 3 odd kms back home at the end of it, the discovery of audio books has come as a blessing. When I say discovery I mean that although I know they've been around for a while now I thought nothing could compare to reading the traditional way, pillow on the elbow and all.

I recently finished my first fictional audio book and came to terms with the plethora of conveniences the experience opened me to. The book I listened to was Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (a free librivox recording) and I chose it because I thought it would be easy listening. Besides, I thought, me being Indian and all, the English accents and sarcasm, would be quite amusing if done right. I was not disappointed, and how!

Since the listening hardly took any extra effort especially once I was into the story, I found myself getting back to it more often than I thought I would. There is something very proper hearing proper pronounced properly by the likes Elinor Dashwood and great amusement in hearing the sanguine entreaties of Mrs. Jennings into the interests of the young Miss Dashwoods’ lives as if she was the the woman sitting beside you in the park.

I now realise that unlike movies, which I believe are almost always lesser representations of the books they are based on, a recording leaves a fair share of the imagining to the reader. That uncomfortable feeling of having being robbed of a favourite fictional character/portion of a book which often settles on me after watching a movie did not come into play here at all. In fact, I found my imagination sufficiently flared with the listening. I found the scene where Willoughby expresses his guilt while revealing his true selfishness recorded to my great satisfaction. By the end of the book, when it was time for things to fall into place as tidily as ever  in true Jane Austen style, I found myself sad that it was over and happy that I was sad about that because it implied that my time had been well spent.

The next audio book I plan to try is Persuasion (I know, I know, another Jane Austen, but as is evident I enjoyed this one quite a bit so I can't help myself!)

A note here for www.booksshouldbefree.com from where one can download several classics and their recordings like this one for free!