Read or Listen?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

But reading the book aloud, word by word, being present in the situation (or listening them on a CD / mp3 / whatever - where it is read but not "acted" by someone) is a different thing.

Tolkien's books are stories to be read aloud like the stories of old he was imitating - even if they are clearly products of the twentieth century prose. But nevertheless. They are stories to be read by a campfire, as bedtime-stories... Reading them alone and quietly by oneself is just a poor substitute for the real thing.

Whereas agreeing with what you say, I disagree. (Ha! Lovely ) I mean, you are right about the storytelling (well, I said that very thing already above), but I disagree with the last sentence. The invention of reading and literacy for majority of people makes it possible for you to read elsewhere than just in the circle around the fireplace with the old tribal bard narrating. It creates options for crawling into your private corner and reading the book in your own self-centered world, closing yourself completely against the outside. However it also creates options for letting your personal imagination loose to its utmost heights, unhindered by the reader's performance. With the storytelling, only the storyteller has the very personal contact with the tale, the others' experience is only transmitted. The reader has the option to and bestow his feelings (in a limited way) upon the others, but denies the others a part in their own imagination, and also things like the management of the time and way of reading (like for example TGEW said).

And by the way, I also believe it is of a big difference to listen to a book being read aloud by someone sitting next to you and on a recording. In this way, the recording actually goes far far far lower on score for me than the reading. The "live" thing makes space for contact, feedback, from both the audience and the narrator (like gasps from the audience when Frodo is suddenly being attacked - the image of Bilbo from the movies telling the hobbit kids about the trolls comes to my mind - and the possible adjustments of the narrator's way of reading based on the audience's reactions or mood). And it is experiencing the story in a communion, passing through it together. With the narrator's voice on a CD you are actually again just alone, but even without the possibility to let your imagination completely loose as you have in reading yourself.