Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret?: Audiobooks are not cheating
In today’s New York Times, Janice Raspen has an article entitled “Your Cheatin’ Listenin’ Ways,” which is about the growing controversy surrounding the fact that some people in book clubs listen to the audiobook of the the chosen selection instead of reading a printed book. Raspen reports that many book club members consider listening to an audio book as “cheating,” or “like watching the movie instead of reading the book.” (At the thought of all these uptight book club members, I couldn’t help but think of that blonde in the book club scene in Little Children.) The story reports numerous incidents where book club members were made to feel ashamed, or were belittled, for listening to an audiobook instead of reading “the real thing.” As Raspen writes of this gaping divide, “the stigma persists that listening to books is Reading Lite.” To that I would say No, Danielle Steel is Reading Lite; everything else is just plain reading.
The entire argument is pretty ridiculous because literature got its start as an oral/aural form; does that mean that reading The Iliad is cheating? That the only way to experience Homer’s epic poem is to have some old Greek come over and recite it? The “reading lite” argument also points out the usual and inherent snobbery that surrounds print books. As if reading a book on a noisy, crowded subway — where there’s a constant assault on the senses — is just plain better than listening to an audiobook narrator whisper into your ear through noise-canceling headphones in a darkened room. I mean, going back to poetry, poems on the page used to be considered shackled; people ventured out to coffee bars and universities to hear it read aloud. And now people are being given a hard time for listening to someone read a novel?
The only thing that’s cheating when it comes to reading or listening to books is to not do either and say you have. Of course, the biggest sin of all is to ignore literary content all together, instead spending time doing nothing but watching soap operas and game shows. But to quibble between audiobooks or print books (the same way, in the “print is dead” debate, people quibble over print books or electronic books) is tremendously silly and misses the point. We want people to interact with and absorb literary content; why care about how it’s consumed? It reminds me of the line in a e.e. cummings poem that says that anyone “who pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.” So why worry about the syntax of formats? Why not just enjoy the experience no matter how it’s delivered? Life is too short to give people in book clubs a hard time; they should be congratulated for wanting to experience a book at all.
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I’m not so sure the oral traditions of the ancient Greeks or of poetry can be so easily tied to the novel form. Unlike the examples you chose, the novel in general is not read aloud.
The neuroscientist’s NYT quote notwithstanding, I think different people learn and understand things in different ways. We don’t ALL get as much out of an audiobook as we do the written text, and vice-versa.
When I fail to pick up on some important nuance of text, I can easily re-read the paragraph, page, or chapter. This is possible with an audiobook but less efficient, and efficiency is ostensibly one of the arguments in favor of the audiobook.
I also think your idyllic description of the audiobook experience–a “whisper into your ear through noise-canceling headphones in a darkened room”–set in contrast to print-reading’s worse-case scenario–reading on a loud, crowded subway–is disingenuous, and not only because the comparison so cheaply favors the audiobook. I am almost certain the majority of audiobook readers listen in their cars, a venue no less distracting than a subway. If readers seek to truly engage with the novel they’re listening to, it would require shifting focus away from the act of driving to a degree that I would consider as negligent as driving and talking on a cell phone.
I have no real beef with audiobooks, especially in the context of whether or not the format lends itself to close reading; plenty of readers of print novels never go beyond a superficial engagement with the text, either.
I really agree with David that People do learn in a different way. Audio book is just another alternative to books.
As a librarian, and a huge devotee of both audio and printed novels, I must say that I hate the idea of listening to a book as “cheating”. In fact, until very recently - most particularly until the advent of radio and television, books were often read aloud. Think of the many scenes in a Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte novel where some young lady reads aloud from a text while family members or friends sit sewing and listening. And, as the many audio books available at any State Library for the Blind would suggest, listening to books is a way of life for some people to this day.
I love to read, and will read anything with print when I get desperate. Including directions on OTC drug packaging and ingredient lists on food. So, for me, the audio book began as an alternative to doing an activity that would preclude “traditional” reading (although, prior to audio books, I did sometimes read at stop lights if I was at a particularly exciting point in a novel).
But the listening has become so much more than just a substitute when I can’t do the “real thing”. There have been times when I have done almost exactly what was described in the above example (laid in the dark listening to my CD player). There have also been times when I have turned off an audio book because I would rather read it in print, since I feel for whatever reason that the print format will better serve the novel. Just the same way that I often think high school teachers are mistaken in teaching Shakespeare as written text (although some do a much better job than others) when these plays are so much richer and more engaging when performed or read aloud.
I think whether or not reading is “close” depends heavily on the person doing the reading or listening. How much you think about what you’ve taken in, and what the novel is in the first place (Dan Brown or Dostoevsky?) But I don’t believe print necessarily improves the quality of a reader’s response, or that audio precludes the reader from full engagement.
Thank you for saying this so well. I’ve been arguing the same point for years at the library. I also think watching a film version of a book can be just as good. Other librarians want to kill me when I say that!
The interesting difference to me is that I feel the need to pay attention to *every single* word when I listen to an audiobook. I read novels quite quickly–especially plot-driven books, like mysteries or urban fiction–and have a bad habit of skimming chunks of descriptive text in order to get to the action. This sometimes bites me in the ass and I have to go back in the text to pick up on something I missed, which simply isn’t possible with audiobooks.
The flip side of this is with an audiobook you wind up devoting 9 HOURS of your life to a casual read that should take maybe a pleasant 4-5 hours, if that.
I love audio books for some things and not for others - idea heavy books, things where i know I’ll be asked to think about what I’m reading, I’ll get those in print. But there are a ton of classics, best-of-genre, and J-Fic novels out there that I just don’t have time to read, and for me most of these work great on audio, and save me from having to listen to talk radio on the way to work. Recently listened to: The Great Gatsby, Siddhartha, The Big Sleep, The Way Some People Die (Ross McDonald), and the Bartimaeus Trilogy. In the case of the last one, I own the books, but the reader for that series is so good i’d rather listen to him read it than read it myself.
As far as plays and Shakespeare goes - yes. I agree with the above, that listening to the words spoken aloud can really bring the play alive for people. And though most novels are not written in an oral tradition style, some are - The Lord Of The Rings is the main one that comes to mind, but almost anything written in first person (like hard boiled detective novels) can really come to life in the hands of a good reader.
It’s definitely not cheating to use an audiobook. I’m a student and I’m way too busy with school work to sit down and read for pleasure. The best way I can is during my commute to school. I use this online audiobook rental service. It’s like Netflix (which is also awesome) but with audiobooks. Pay monthly and get unlimited audiobooks in the mail. The turn around has been great and the customer service has been very kind when I accidentally lost one. They have a huge selection and you can request a book they don’t have and they’ll get it for you.
Check it out: http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com