The Gunroom discussion
Patrick O'Brian audiobooks
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message 51:
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Bill
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Feb 14, 2015 10:05AM
Jack is never "bombastic". My dictionary tells me that bombast is "high-sounding language with little meaning, used to impress people". Where in the canon, pray tell, does Jack do that? And a "jerk", according to my Webster, is "a stupid person or a person who is not well-liked or who treats other people badly". Once again, where do you find Jack exhibiting such behavior? As for your description of Maturin, I won't dignify it with a comment.
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"When is Jack bombastic?" Are you serious? The man was tried and pilloried for essentially being a bombast, or read his description of his silver mine, but hell it is most clearly displayed every Sunday when the ship is rigged for church and he reads the articles of war.As for being a jerk, giving your commander a cuckolds horns usually qualifies but there are dozens of times throughout the series when he behaves less than admirably.
R. Michael: The instances you describe are not "bombast"Jack is never "self-important" or "pontificating."
I've heard most of the unabridged performances, dating back to Richard Brown. He was the first reader I heard, on long hikes with my dogs, a Walkman cassette player, and some spare batteries. I have the complete Books on Tape collection, mostly by Brown, a few by John Lee, if memory serves (it seldom does these days, and the hikes are walks now, but the iPod is a much better listening tool!).
I've also listened to three or four of the books read by Patrick Tull. He is my least favorite - he makes Stephen a bit leprechaun-ish and is pretty melodramtic and breathy. I recently decided to cave and begin acquiring the books in digital format and went with Simon Vance at Audible. Excellent so far (just finished Master and Commander). I'll be surprised if he can surpass Brown's rendition of Killick - one of my favorite characters as the books progress.
But I'm ready to be Surprised.
John. Enjoy! I particularly love Vance's Killick, and I hope you will too!
I much prefer Vance to the other narrators mentioned. To show the differences in taste, however, there is one voice that Vance does that I don't like, and it is Killick. Go figure.
Hi,I'm somewhat bewildered. Starting in 2011 with BBC Audiobooks - who morphed into "AudioGo" and finally a few months back Audible UK - I've recorded, in order, the complete canon (sic!) of the "Aubreyiad" apart from the final and incomplete one. Painstaking work, with consistent and brilliant producing by BBC drama producers. I'm proud of it; more to the point, the versions have been mightily enthused over and endorsed by reader/listeners posting on Amazon UK. My local library has CDs. How come "Goodreads" Gunroom doesn't seem to have heard (of) them?
Ric, I wish I were so fortunate as to have access to CDs like that at my local library. I live in the rural southern states and my library is a shoebox with a small extension. However, I have just found "The Mauritius Command" with David Robb and Richard Dillane, Radio 4 play, downloadable at http://www.thedearsurprise.com/the-ma...
Hi RicThis is just fantastic news.
Please give some more details of the recordings.
Who are the principle actors / readers.
What a wonderful achievement.
The series so deserves a continuity of performer.
Thanks for your post
Matt
Ric Jerrom - I'm afraid your versions of the series are just not readily available this side of the pond. I did, however, very much enjoy your reading of Ruth Rendell's Thirteen Steps Down. Quite masterful the way you managed to make Mix utterly believable, engaging, human . . . AND extremely disquieting . . . all at the same time.
Thanks for your kind critique, Kristine: sad to read yesterday of Ruth Rendell's death (at 85): I've recorded a number of her books. She was great to read aloud (like O'Brian), a brilliant and insightful user of language. Quite often, recording a book is a rescue mission - from slack writing, sloppy characterisation, feeble or non-existent editing! So "proper" writers are a pleasure: I get to really feel my way into the writing and the characters.I'll try and find out why my PO'B recordings aren't available Stateside: odd....
Best Wishes,
Ric.
I do wonder in what way recording a book can possibly "rescue a book ... from slack writing, sloppy characterization (and) feeble or non-existent editing". After all, I assume that an honest edition has to present what is written, regardless of how slack it may be; that you can't improve sloppy characterization; and that you can't correct feeble or non-existent editing.
Is it possible to still buy the John Lee recordings anywhere?
Mod
Ooh, coming in totally late to a thread I started years ago, but yes--I like that Vance makes Stephen sound nerdy, because let's face it, he's a huge nerd! And when he gives papers, he has absolutely no presence and can't be heard by most of the people at the Institute. That and Stephen's complete lack of self-knowledge--he's constantly getting hooked on stuff because he doesn't believe he's susceptible to addiction. And is always surprised when people realize he's not English. Vance gives him just a tint of an Irish accent, so I like that in his portrayal.
I still hate the whining, half-strangulated way Vance makes Diana talk, but you can't have everything.
Where do yall reccomend gettimg the audiobooks from? I have never been a huge fan of audiobooks in general but after finishing the series I am near deaperate for some continuation of the saga.
h011yw00d wrote: "Where do yall reccomend gettimg the audiobooks from? I have never been a huge fan of audiobooks in general but after finishing the series I am near deaperate for some continuation of the saga."I get them from Audible, which is Amazon, as is Goodreads
I checked them out from my library via an app called Overdrive. I was able to download every last one of the Simon Vance versions to my phone. The check out period was 21 days each time I checked one out.
What a fascinating modern age we live in!
Good news. As of writing this, it looks like Ric's versions are available on audible in the US. However, it is *not* the whole series "Due to publishing restrictions this title is not available in your country" . Ah nice! sigh. Anyway. I am sure being in IT I can find away around this (and still pay for the content). What a hassle though. For those not in IT, it is just to difficult to explain I'm afraid. I did include a couple links below to what I could find at the time of this post.Here is a link to the whole series read by several different narrators. (I have the whole series read by Vance, but as of writing this.. audible doesn't have a license to sell his versions)
http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_s...
Just for Ric Narration use this link , as of writing this there are 4 of the series available.
http://www.audible.com/search?advsear...
I think I will have to listen to the whole series again now with Mr Jerrom at the helm.
I've been enjoying the Aubrey Maturin roman fleuve since 2010 after reading Forester all the way through twice and C Northcote Parkinson's collection and a couple of others I came across. I wasn't keen to start O'Brian as my mother had harped on about him (without ever reading anything he wrote). I wasn't initially thrilled but about 3 or 4 books in was completely hooked. I read the whole series 6 or 7 times (and I don't generally re-read books) and then found the audiobooks so that I could listen to it in the car on long journeys, though now I often listen to them for company. For a long while I was aware that some readers were easier to listen to than others, and this last time I have come down in favour of Stephen Thorne over all the others. His characterisation is good and consistently recognisable so that one knows who is speaking all the time. Also he doesn't employ gross accents in the main characters which I have found off-putting in other renditions. I find his Jack and Stephen particularly well-atuned to my sense of their characters, and his women's and children's voices extremely convincing. And I like his Killick, and Mrs Broad, and Sir Joseph also is such nice old gentleman. I'm sure none of these people had they really existed would have sounded like this - you only have to listen to how people sounded in the 1950s to realise that English shifts all the time, and we would be unlikely to understand the spoken English of 200 years ago, but as a reading for today, Stephen Thorne is definitely my choice, and I am now devastated to have come to the end of The Letter of Marque and gone through my collection to find that he hasn't apparently done any more. I have samples of all the other readers mentioned here, and none of them are quite so generally good at personification and diversification of persons and personalities. If anyone knows of any other Stephen Thorne renditions that I haven't come across I would love to hear of them!
Which of the books has Steven Thorne narrated?
I don't know, but he is a top narrator.Ross
Hi, I've just checked through my audiobooks, and the ones I have which are read by Stephen Thorne are these:Post Captain
H M S Surprise
The Mauritius Command
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbour
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
I haven't come across any others. These books are also read by other readers on the various formats. Stephen Thorne seems to read for the company 'Soundings'
Hope this is a help!
Sarah
I recently came across this thread and thought I'd add to it, even though I don't have anything very original to say. I've been working my way through the series on audiobook, I just finished Nutmeg of Consolation, so I'm close to being finished. I have about a 25-minute to work every day, which means I get through almost a disc every workday. I get the audiobooks on CD through interlibrary loans, so it's been about half Vance and half Tull as narrators. I have to say I much prefer Vance. I would go so far as to say that I strongly dislike Tull as a narrator, because his style is very difficult to listen to while driving. He alternates between a whispered mumble and a shout, so it's always too soft and I can't hear what he's saying, or it's so loud it hurts my ears. There never seems to be any middle ground. I find it incredibly annoying. So Vance is my preference simply because he's much less annoying to listen to. I'm curious about the Thorne versions, I'll have to track them down.
To each his own. I very much dislike listening to Vance trying to read these books. His voice is far too effeminate, which gves me the creeps. Worse, he makes Jack sound like a pompous ass and he turns Diana's voice into an irritating whine. On the other hand, I think Tull is terrific. He gets all the accents just right. Besides that, he can sing!I suggest you wait until you arrive home, and there listen to Tull. Away from your car and the distractions of traffic, you can thus give these great works the full attention that they deserve.
Interesting - I did just this: listened to the whole set narrated by Patrick Tull on my commute to work (over about 2 years). I have tried Simon Vance (as a Brit myself his versions of Aubrey and Maturin really irritate me) whereas Tull provides a bit more gravel and gravitas to these characters and also provides lots of wry humour in his delivery. I will probably try one of the Ric Jerome versions on audible at some point which samples indicate better things than Vance but still not in the same category as Tull. Whilst Tull is the voice of these books for me what we hear when we read is by definition unique and hence preference for narrators is to each his own.
I'm pleased that you agree with me, Steve, particularly because you're a Brit, and therefore speak with more authority on this than we mere Yanks.
I think I posted on this sometime in the past so may be repeating myself but I think Tull has by far the best portrayal of the series. I especially like his Stephen and Dianna. I wish I was able to hear all of the books by Tull but the library only had Vance with some of them and I kind of suffered through them. It was a real relief to rejoin Tull for the rest of them.
