Heard it. Oh, no. I couldn't hear Crowley read the book on tape. Maybe live, to hear him experience the thing as we the listeners did; maybe that way. But judging from the sample, the audiobook is like so many others: it takes an unusually fluid, heightened-naturalistic text -- one that rings just right in the ear, nicely balancing flights of lyrical (and specifically literary) fantasy with the easy syncopations of American English as she is spoke -- and makes it into A Reading. Hard articulated T's between words, words proceeding at a sliiiiightly unnatural andante.
I hate to 'hear books,' but I like to hear stories told from books, as if from prompts. To me, the best audiobooks capture that energy -- particularly variation in tempo and dynamics. Jim Dale is one of the masters, no question. Hitchens too (he developed a writerly voice that more or less was his speaking voice -- no mean feat, whichever way the arrow points). I saw James Ellroy speak at MIT once, and he read aloud from one of his later, more 'telegraphic' books. ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. It was...wrong, in a way I could never put my finger on. I've never been so forcefully reminded that the Author isn't the god of the text -- and more to the point, that folks who write for a living shouldn't be expected to be master vocal performers too...
I bow at Crowley's feet but I couldn't listen to his Little, Big. Maybe not anyone's, come to think of it. And that's me for you. Maybe you could though? And bless you, if so.
