There are many arguments about the benefits of audiobooks but the best argument goes back to the source of stories, the spoken word.
There are many arguments about the benefits of audiobooks but the best argument goes back to the source of stories, the spoken word.
We are addicted to audiobooks at my house, so I thought I should write a series of posts about why I think audiobooks are worthwhile. When I decided to write about audiobooks, I assumed that when I researched the topic I would find many people against them (and there are many people against audiobooks). However, I was clear about one argument I wanted to make and was startled to discover that Stephen King makes the same argument.
Books are stories. Story telling is where the first book was born. It started when someone told another person a story while they sat around the fire one night. Then someone got the bright idea to use scratches on a piece of paper to represent the words we spoke. Soon someone started writing the best stories down. Somewhere along the line the process was interrupted and the story was never spoken it was simply put on paper and handed out and we stopped listening to the words. Stories were meant to be told which means someone needs to listen. When you realize that a book is a story, you realize that the speaker who writes the book is a voice – a voice that needs to be listened to.
I believe that listening to the spoken word is a viable alternate to silent reading because I write poetry. The only way to tell if a poem has good rhythm is to listen to it read aloud so that you can hear it. If you read a poem silently, it is likely that the only sensory input you will get from it are images. If you read a poem aloud, you receive the additional input of sound and the components of sound (such as rhythm and volume). When you consider stories as being a sensory experience then listening becomes an important component. The richness of Mark Twain’s dialect-accurate writing style suddenly becomes apparent. Stephen King says it this way:
Audio is merciless. It exposes every bad sentence, half-baked metaphor, and lousy word choice. (Listen to a Tom Clancy novel on CD, and you will never, ever read another. You'll never be able to look at another one without gibbering.) I can't remember ever reading a piece of work and wondering how it would look up on the silver screen, but I always wonder how it will sound. Because, all apologies to Mr. Bloom, the spoken word is the acid test. They don't call it storytelling for nothing.
There are many intellectual, educational, physical, and even societal reasons to argue the benefits of reading through the medium of audiobooks. I will cover them in my next blog post. However, before I made the common arguments, I wanted to make my argument for the simple act of storytelling.
What do you think? Take a poll about audiobooks.
