My head hurts, my throat hurts, my backside hurts. I can’t think, read or speak. I’ve been recording my audiobook, you see. It has been murder. If it is as painful to listen to as it has been to record, I will be sending out refunds.
The people who do these things well deserve the highest praise. Baftas ought to be awarded. I particularly revere Michael Jayston for his work reading Le Carré. I could listen to Jayston – who was in the seminal TV adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy alongside Sir Alec Guinness – read anything by Le Carré. In fact, I’d happily listen to Michael Jayston read anything: iTunes’ terms and conditions, last year’s racing results, my itemised phone bill – he’s that good.
His reading of Tinker Tailor, for example, is nearly 13 hours long. It falls to him, as with almost every narrator of audiobooks, to do every voice, every accent and, obviously, deliver the authorial voice. It amounts to what is essentially a very long one-man play. Jayston could deliver a performance for the ages as King Lear at Stratford and could not impress me any more than he does with his audiobook recordings. And this is how I felt before I had to record one myself. Now I am even more in awe.
I thought reading my own words would make it easier, but this wasn’t the case. My book is about drinking – part memoir, part self-help. Whenever I read back anything I have written, I think how I could have written it better. You may well feel the same way about my work; please be assured, I share your pain. Having to read your words out loud takes this to a new level, subjecting your prose to the sternest, most unforgiving test. Every writer should make it their business to do this. Perhaps they do? I can think of a few who might have learned a thing or two.
If Henry James had had to do an audiobook of The Golden Bowl, I can’t believe he wouldn’t have gone back and chopped a few of those endless sentences down a bit. And I am imagining old Leo Tolstoy losing his mind reading War and Peace out loud by candlelight, pausing occasionally to throw the odd chapter on the fire, giving that classic doorstopper a much-needed trim.
As for me, assisted by a brilliant, frighteningly attentive producer, Chris Barstow, I started quite well. His directions were wonderful – he would suggest leaning in a bit more to this word or that. And he was always right. But the longer it went on, the more muddled I got, and his soothing interjections came thicker and faster. “Let’s try that one again, shall we, Adrian?” “Little fluff there, Adrian.” Or a gentle inquiry along the lines of, “Do you want to say ‘could’ there, Adrian? It says ‘would’ on the page.” And so on.
He missed nothing. Occasionally, I would think I had got away with a little bit of sub-optimal emphasis but, no, within or second or two he was on to me. The whole thing came to feel like a very long version of Just a Minute, with my producer as Paul Merton, nitpicking away on the other side of the glass, buzzing in at every hesitation, repetition or deviation.
After five hours of this, I could take no more. Each word, sentence and paragraph had become a mountain to climb. Also, it was most uncomfortable sitting with my legs crossed as I constantly needed the toilet. My intake of tea and water to lubricate my throat had been prodigious. We called a halt for the day.
On the bus home, I was quite unable to read, talk or even think. But, my God, I’ve never felt so hydrated. My skin is glowing – glowing, I tell you.
Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
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