Listen...

Or Read?

Books on tape, we used to call them. Didn’t everyone? Or has the less whimsical, but perhaps more accurate, term “audiobook” always been widely preferred? Presumably a book on tape in 2020 is an entire book printed on a role of tape. Which is quite a good idea.

Anyway, I love a book on tape. Always have. When I was a youngster, I had a lockable Walkman that went just about everywhere with me. I listened to a lot of Famous Five then, and a bit of Secret Seven. And plenty of Asterix (read by the inimitable William Rushton). And, of course, Harry Potter, which became quite the commitment with the later books. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is nearly 800 pages long, which translates to more than 30 hours of listening time. That’s a lot of tapes to lug around, but worth it when Stephen Fry’s doing the narrating. I now have all seven of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books dowloaded on the Audible app on my phone, and I’ve listened to all of them dozens of times. I would not, though, claim to have read them all dozens of times. I’ve properly read the Harry Potter books at least twice each, with Prisoner of Azkaban clocking up, I think, six complete reads. By which I mean there have been six separate occasions when I’ve picked up that book and read it from cover to cover. Which begs the question: what counts as reading a book?

Away from Harry Potter, this question emerged recently over A Tale of Two Cities (which I wrote about in my last post). I read it on the recommendation of someone who had only listened to it as an audiobook, and I subsequently smugly suggested, to significant and science-supported pushback, that I was likely to have got more from it because I actually read it. But is that true? Here’s my argument.

Books are meant to be read. Their authors write them to be read. A bit like a play or screenplay is written to be seen. I studied Hamlet for A-Level English at school in 2007, and loved it. But I did not actually see it performed on stage until 10 years later, when Sherlock’s Andrew Scott tore it up as the melancholy Dane at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre. After leaving the theatre, I remembered back to my A-Levels and felt that I could have benefited hugely in my study of Hamlet by seeing it performed, as there are things you just don’t pick up on otherwise. I believe the same is true of reading a book. Certainly I believe it is not possible to get the same appreciation for genuinely brilliant writing from listening to an audiobook. A book is not merely the contents of its narrative. Whether fiction or non-fiction, just knowing the information included in a book is not enough to say you have read it. An author makes a choice of which words they put where, and certainly for me, actually reading a (physical) book is the best way of fully appreciating how that’s been done.

Then there is the fact that someone else is reading it to you. When you listen to an audiobook, you are passively, not actively, engaged. The story will continue with or without you, and at least in my experience, often does. I fall asleep a lot listening to audiobooks, which is why I tend to avoid them if I’m driving!

We all read in different ways. I am a slow reader, in large part because I fear I’m missing key elements if I do not read every word individually. I effectively consume books by reading them aloud to myself in my head. Why would it make any difference then if someone else is doing the same thing for me on an audiobook? Because they will read it in a subtly different way, putting intonations and stresses in different places than I would. So I can’t say I’ve read it, as I’ve not experienced it in the way only I could. I can only say it’s been read to me.

All that is not to denigrate the audiobook. I’m a huge fan. They’re amazing for children, not least as that’s the way we are all largely first introduced to stories, by having them told to us. They’re brilliant for multi-tasking. It’s mighty difficult to read a book while on a bike, or on a run, or at the supermarket; or while cooking, or while pushing a pram, or while operating a threshing machine. But you can do all of those things and more while listening to an audiobook. And they’re also superb for people who just don’t like reading. Audiobooks mean that those who can’t/won’t/don’t want to read can still enjoy everything a book has to offer, and that’s awesome.

But despite all the above waffle, in the end it comes down to the word “read”. If this was an Aaron Sorkin-penned movie, I’d just say: “If you guys had read A Tale of Two Cities…you’d have read A Tale of Two Cities.” And I’d go on my merry way.