Recent books on tape

Nowadays everyone buys recorded music on CD. Vinyl and cassettes have long since been driven out of town. Strange, then, that with very few exceptions audio books are available only on cassette. Many cars are now equipped with CD players and it takes just a few seconds to plug in a portable player. Naxos are about the only publisher still offering a choice of format. Apart from improved sound quality it is so much easier to know where you are on CD. Numbered reference points make dipping in and out uncomplicated. This is especially apt for anthologies like Poets of the Great War (Naxos, 2 CD, 2 hours, L9.99) when repeated listening is irresistible. This is an extensive collection: 62 poems by not only the 'greats' like Sassoon, Owen and Brooke, but less familiar voices. The reading is magnificent throughout and the historical and emotional flow is enriched by dividing the poems into sections (Anticipation, The Trenches, Protest etc). Whether on tape or CD, do not tail to obtain a copy of Anton Lesser's reading of Hard Times by Charles Dickens (Naxos Tape/CD, 4 hours, L12.99) and hear vocal acrobatics taken to the extreme. If the author demands a voice like `broken bellows' (Mr Sleary), Lesser delivers. Singlehanded and multi-voiced he brings the sooty, grimy Lancashire mill town of Coketown to life. `People mutht be amuthed', wheezes Sleary. And how.

News from India used to mean the voice of Mark Tully: such is the power of association. Tully was the BBC's man in SouthEast Asia for 25 years and in The Heart of India (Chivers Audio Books, 7 1/2 hours, L15.95) he combines his talents of microphone and pen with a fertile imagination in these nine 'fictional' stories of village life in Uttar Pradesh - not only the geographical heart of India but a region loved by Tully. It shows.

Diaries work splendidly on audio, and To War with Whitaker (Chivers Audio Books, 12 3/4 hours, L16.95) is a riveting example of the genre. The aristocratic tones of Patricia Hodge are perfect for these World War II diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly as she hurtles through the Middle East accompanied by Whitaker, her husband's valet. The Countess is certainly not a lady to dodge danger and bullets, as Monty and Churchill discovered.

Although a carefully selected audio book is usually an ideal travelling companion, speaking only when invited, it is not always guaranteed to raise the spirits. Take Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome (Penguin Audio, L7.99), the depressing tale of a young New England farmer tormented by his suspicious wife whilst ogling her vivacious cousin who lives with them as a home help. Doom on the range. Nathan Osgood's grizzly-bear voice copes surprisingly happily with the female voices as well as the downhearted Ethan. A high quality but sombre 3 hours.

If the mood persists, why not embark on a 12 1/2-hour journey with Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (Cover to Cover, L24.99)? Hardy's and Wharton's heroes face some kindred dilemmas, like what to do with their wives. Michael Henchard, the blundering mayor, sells his wife and daughter at a village fair. Frome would have sought no financial reward to see Zeena vanish into the sunset. It is hard to fault the unabridged Hardy tapes. Cover to Cover have a knack of striking gold with their readers. John Rowe slides effortlessly into the spirit of these tragic Wessex folk. His star voice is Farfrae, Henchard's friend, then foe. He sounds just like the sanctimonious Scot he is.

You would have thought that the charttopping Longitude by Dava Sobel (HarperCollins, 3 hours, L8.99) would have been an assured success on tape: an enthralling account of how wizard clockmaker John Harrison's selfless dedication solved the problem shared by Drake, Columbus, and da Gama - getting lost at sea. Sadly, it is the listener who is left marooned. David Rintoul reads in a cold, public-speaking voice leading our minds to wander as if in the back row of a turgid lecture.

The Aboriginals wouldn't have given a fig for the discovery of longitude. They knew exactly where they were, thanks to the invisible pathways called songlines. Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines (Reed Audio, 3 hours, L7.99) is read energetically by Tim Pigott-Smith who is a dab-hand at the Aussie accent. The drawback is the abridgment rather than the voice. Cramming a 300-page book on to just three hours of tape means far too much of Chatwin's tour de force is passed over.

Many a land-lubber has become hooked on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin tales of the high seas. They are addictive, both abridged and unabridged. The shorter version is read with unquenchable enthusiasm by Robert Hardy. Pick any title and you have a winner. The latest, The Yellow Admiral (Bespoke Audio, 3 hours, 8.99) finds Jack Aubrey, now Member of Parliament, being given a rough ride by his admiral, Lord Stranraer. Hardy is his usual ebullient self as the booming Aubrey, but shrewdly cuts the volume for Stephen Maturin's gentle Irish brogue. It's hard to imagine anyone but Hardy reading these Napoleonic sea stories. But no one is indispensable. Enter Patrick Tull whose interpretation of The Ionian Mission (Isis Audio, 15 1/4 hours, L43.50), an early Aubrey and Maturin adventure, is equally captivating. Tull lacks Hardy's roar, but who doesn't?

Appearing simultaneously with the much discussed book, The Memory Game by Nicci French (Reed Audio, 3 hours, L7.99), the cassette has passed the tried and tested method of unearthing a top-notch audio thriller - the Tangle Factor. If excitement in Frances Barber's sinister reading has reached fever pitch (it had) and you are listening in an icy cold car long after your journey had ended, only one thing can happen. The tape jams and self-destroys. It did.

Copyright Spectator Mar 29, 1997
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