I've started War and Peace again. I have never actually finished it. It makes me think of Olga, just because it is Russian. I remember her saying that "Tolstoy is a beautiful philosopher," while the philosophy professors I got to chat with in Duluth generally and vaguely agreed with the statement that Tolstoy is "less of a philosopher and more of a classical pop-moralist." I have "read" (via librivox) many of his short stories, which I find beautiful and touching, and I have a general agreement with the morals that he has in them, which are normally not subtle. I do find much of his writing beautiful, and it is no accident or conspiracy that War and Peace is often considered among of the best novels ever produced by humankind. I first started War and Peace as an audiobook during the summer before I went to China for the first time, the summer of 2008. I continued to "read" (listen to) War and Peace during my first year in China (2008-2009). My entire time reading it was supplemented by Wikipedia and Sparknotes to deepen my understanding of all the complexities going on in the novel. I was not using these to replace the reading of the book, but rather to help me grasp and keep a mental hold on the multiple plot lines and dozens of named characters of varying important. Many of the names of which were completely foreign to me as well, having never been introduced to the Russian language before. An added complexity was that characters were often referred to by their titles (Count Bezukov) in some i passages and by personal names (Andrei) in others. But I managed to "read" it anyway. It was in intervals, though, depending on motivation and what chapters were available from librivox. At one point during the Spring of 2009 I had to stop for several months due to the fact that the next parts of the book hadn't been recorded and released yet. During the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009 I tended to listen to it on the bus while on my way somewhere or before I went to bed, so sometimes I would fall asleep midway through a chapter, missing important information. I would usually try to go back and listen to it again, but sometimes I would just continue on, satisfied with just knowing the general direction that the story was going, without bothering to re-listen to it in order to get all the details of a particular chapter. This was pretty slow going, with more nights in total spent not listening to War and Peace than listening to War and Peace. This was mostly due to the availability of the chapters on librivox rather than my own motivation, actually. There were certainly nights when I didn't feel like it, or when I was too exhausted, or when I had something better to do, but I do recall numerous times both during the fall and spring semester in Beijing that I spent the minutes before sleep listening to the adventures and the lives of Pierre and Andrei, the idealist and the cynic. The small islands of daily (or nightly) listening to War and Peace were surrounded by vast seas of waiting for the next section of the book to be released on librivox. I briefly resumed listening to War and Peace during the beginning of my senior year of college at Kalamazoo, and (spoiler alert) I recall that I got as far as the chapter describing the final moments of Andrei. I think that was about 90% of the way through the book. That is as far as I ever got. To this day I still haven't finished War and Peace, despite my claim that I have read it. As I am finishing Errant in Iberia though, a very mediocre read by my non-professional non-trained judgment, I think that I will replace it's presence on my currently-reading list with War and Peace, and hope to finish War and Peace before I leave Spain. Since War and Peace is apparently in the public domain, and is among the e-books available for free download via kindle, and I just so happen to have download it a few months ago when I started using kindle.
Showing posts with label audio books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label audio books. Show all posts
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
How I "read" Classic Literature
I read with my ears. That is: I listen to audio books.
I have loved librivox ever since I first discovered it in my freshman year of college. With a spring break to be spent on campus I needed something to keep me entertained. Fortunately I got a hold of Librivox's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I remember listening to it while jogging and exercising, as I didn't know many other ways to pass unscheduled time. That is my first memory of Librivox.
Since my freshman year I have used Librivox to listen to a lot of stories, and my having "read" War and Peace during the summer of 2008 and my time as a student in China is certainly because of Librivox. I have great doubts that I would have gotten through that behemoth if I had been in possession of a paper copy. Don Quixote was listened to while I did boring manual labor at Kalamazoo college in the summer of 2008, and I "read" some of Leo Tolstoy's and Oscar Wilde's short stories the same way, to keep from insanity while painting walls and moving furniture in exchange for the privilege to live on campus during the summer. During my senior year of college I "read" Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island. After seeing how thick a paper copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was sitting (unfinished, I might add!) on the shelf of another K student, I was very pleased that I had used such an easy way to read it.
A few months ago, however, I discovered that Librivox audio books could be downloaded as podcasts directly in iTunes. I was immensely pleased, as the ease and convenience of listening to audio books suddenly skyrocketed. As a result my rate of "reading" has gone up significantly, and in the past six months of being in China I feel that I have "read" many books: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories. I am currently finished up my Mark Twain kick, and after polishing off The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I am part way though A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I am definitely enjoying Twain's sense of humor and satire so far
I normally don't listen to audio books in the daytime though. While I am on a bus, bike, or subway I tend to listen to educational or news podcasts, or sometimes lectures from iTunes U. In fact, the only time that I consistently listen to audio books in when I lay in bed before sleeping. A pillow mp3 player that a received as a gift years ago serves this purpose, and is exceedingly more comfortable than trying to drift into sleep with ear buds in my ears of headphones around my head.
I problem does arise though: when I lay down in a vaguely comfortable position in a dark room at the end of a day, egads! I tend to fall asleep! This is a problem when I am listening to especially long chapters, as if I fall asleep before the end of a chapter my iPod will keep playing until the end of that chapter, meaning that I miss out on a part of the story. I can, of course, go back and listen again, or look up what I missed on Sparknotes. It is a little hassle though.
Another downside is that I can only read old (classic, usually) books this way. For all of the more modern books I want to read about China, Brazil, Latin America, lying, zombies or anything by my new favorite philosopher, I still have to actually read the book, rather than drifting into dreams while listening to someone else's voice.
I feel really geeky about enjoying audio books so much, but in kind of a warm and fuzzy way. In the same way that reading a good story often makes me not want to put the book down or makes me excited to pick up the book again, I sometimes enjoy the stories so much that I am excited to go to bed, and I end up turning off my lights and hopping into the covers far earlier than I otherwise would so that I can listen to more of the story. More rest certainly won't hurt my health, but I find it amusing that I hop into bed full of energy and excitement.
I have loved librivox ever since I first discovered it in my freshman year of college. With a spring break to be spent on campus I needed something to keep me entertained. Fortunately I got a hold of Librivox's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I remember listening to it while jogging and exercising, as I didn't know many other ways to pass unscheduled time. That is my first memory of Librivox.
Since my freshman year I have used Librivox to listen to a lot of stories, and my having "read" War and Peace during the summer of 2008 and my time as a student in China is certainly because of Librivox. I have great doubts that I would have gotten through that behemoth if I had been in possession of a paper copy. Don Quixote was listened to while I did boring manual labor at Kalamazoo college in the summer of 2008, and I "read" some of Leo Tolstoy's and Oscar Wilde's short stories the same way, to keep from insanity while painting walls and moving furniture in exchange for the privilege to live on campus during the summer. During my senior year of college I "read" Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island. After seeing how thick a paper copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was sitting (unfinished, I might add!) on the shelf of another K student, I was very pleased that I had used such an easy way to read it.
A few months ago, however, I discovered that Librivox audio books could be downloaded as podcasts directly in iTunes. I was immensely pleased, as the ease and convenience of listening to audio books suddenly skyrocketed. As a result my rate of "reading" has gone up significantly, and in the past six months of being in China I feel that I have "read" many books: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories. I am currently finished up my Mark Twain kick, and after polishing off The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I am part way though A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I am definitely enjoying Twain's sense of humor and satire so far
I normally don't listen to audio books in the daytime though. While I am on a bus, bike, or subway I tend to listen to educational or news podcasts, or sometimes lectures from iTunes U. In fact, the only time that I consistently listen to audio books in when I lay in bed before sleeping. A pillow mp3 player that a received as a gift years ago serves this purpose, and is exceedingly more comfortable than trying to drift into sleep with ear buds in my ears of headphones around my head.
I problem does arise though: when I lay down in a vaguely comfortable position in a dark room at the end of a day, egads! I tend to fall asleep! This is a problem when I am listening to especially long chapters, as if I fall asleep before the end of a chapter my iPod will keep playing until the end of that chapter, meaning that I miss out on a part of the story. I can, of course, go back and listen again, or look up what I missed on Sparknotes. It is a little hassle though.
Another downside is that I can only read old (classic, usually) books this way. For all of the more modern books I want to read about China, Brazil, Latin America, lying, zombies or anything by my new favorite philosopher, I still have to actually read the book, rather than drifting into dreams while listening to someone else's voice.
I feel really geeky about enjoying audio books so much, but in kind of a warm and fuzzy way. In the same way that reading a good story often makes me not want to put the book down or makes me excited to pick up the book again, I sometimes enjoy the stories so much that I am excited to go to bed, and I end up turning off my lights and hopping into the covers far earlier than I otherwise would so that I can listen to more of the story. More rest certainly won't hurt my health, but I find it amusing that I hop into bed full of energy and excitement.
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