Maybe there are people on the planet who like Philip Roth's books, but I have regrettably joined the group of persons in the world who DON'T like them. I finished listening to American Pastoral 12 minutes and 4 seconds after I started my commute this morning (uh, yes, it is very difficult to switch audiobooks on your iPod while driving 65 on the Eisenhower) and all I could think was "Really?" Because I'd been eaten up wondering when in the last two-thirds of the book we'd get back to the narrator, who was a rather interesting fellow, and the answer is, we didn't. Which is annoying. Also, I'd been wondering how Dawn and the Swede end up divorced, and the answer is, "I don't know" because Roth decided to not enlighten us.
I guess it's not horrible that I at least cared enough about the main character that I was wondering these things, but I also know that the only reason I cared at all was because I listened to the book. Reading that thing would have been excruciating, and I'm almost 100% certain I would have quit. My sister hates that I think audiobooks should count toward the Time 100, and I've been trying to explain to her that the only way I'll finish these books is to listen to them, but she still maintains it's like watching a movie-version of the book. Which is patently ridiculous (no offense, Kate), because the only difference between the book and the audiobook is the someone is reading it to you. (Also, they occasionally throw in some crappy music snippets, but really, those are stupid.) Is a mom reading a book to a kid at all like the kid watching the movie version of the book? I can't imagine anyone who would say yes. Especially if you only listen to unabridged audiobooks. Which I do.
Anyway, the point is, audiobooks force me to slow down and understand every single word. I'm an incredibly fast reader, and my temptation, when reading Time 100 books, is to skim. (Which, lets be honest, has to cheating on this thing more than audiobooks are cheating.) Lest you immediately adopt some sort of horrified attitude, let me tell you that I skim almost every single thing I read. It doesn't hamper my understanding of books, and let my stellar grades from kindergarten through college and on to my certificate program be evidence of that. If skimming was really a problem, wouldn't my essays be crap? Wouldn't I test poorly? The answer is no. Once I start to skim these Time 100 books, it's all downhill. Because I already am bored by the books, and so I start to skim faster. It's the skimming faster that's the problem here. Because then I do start to miss things, and it's like I'm in a race to see just how quickly I can finish the book. And that's bad.
The audiobooks are helping me enjoy this horribly boring Time 100 books more than I was, which is to say, I no longer hate them so much I want to shred them when I'm done with them. Now I only sort of hate them, which is a huge leap, don't you think? I believe that instead of discouraging me from using the audiobook format to complete this task, my sister should cheer and be happy, because I'm actually getting something out of these books when I listen to them every day. Also, and this is just a fact, there's really not THAT many of them out there on audiobook. So however many I read will only be a fraction of what is already out there. This is really the first one I've listened to (unless you account my aborted attempt to listen to The Fellowship of the Ring, but I don't, since I never finished it and will clearly have to re-try.), and I've just bought three more with a lovely gift certificate someone gave me for audible.
I think, and I know this pisses Kate off, but I think I'll have to keep doing the audiobooks as long as they still have some left. I won't go buy audiobooks of things we already own, but I'm not going to buy any more of these books in actual book version. It's not a good value to me; the audiobook clearly is.
Though I still don't like American Pastoral, and I'm peeved by how many freaking loose ends Roth left.
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