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Archive for the ‘Jim Norton’ Category

James Joyce–A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) [abridged audiobook 2003–Jim Norton]

Posted in Audiobooks, Dublin, Ireland, Fears, Irish Writer, James Joyce, Jim Norton, Prostitution, Religion, Sex, Virginity (Loss of) on January 4, 2011| 1 Comment »

[LISTENED TO: November through December 2010] A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I initially ended this post with: “Even though this audio was unabridged, it felt a bit like hearing an abridged version.  I suspect I shall have to actually read the novel again in 2011 to see what I missed.”  Well, I assumed that the audio was unabridged.  But now I see that there is another recording which is 7 discs as opposed to my copy’s 3 discs.  Gadzooks!  In tiny print on the back of the box, I see now that this is abridged.  NO WONDER I felt like so much was left out of the story.  It actually made me think that the story wasn’t all that coherent.  As such, you can kind of disregard this post until I listen to the unabridged version (which is available free for download here).

So, back to my initial review:

I was listening to this audio book while exercising.  The fact that it took me as long as it did to finish the audio book is more of a testament to my lack of exercising than the book itself.  Although I will say that unlike Dubliners, I found that listening to this book (and again, perhaps it was the distance between listenings) to be somewhat unsatisfying.  And of course, as with all of these Naxos CDs, the vocals are recorded so quietly (except when he starts screaming–the hellfire sermon is so loud it scared my family upstairs) that you really have to try to listen hard to hear the whispers.  The final chapter–Stephen’s diary–is read so quietly it was hard to hear over the exercise machine, even with the sound up all the way.

So this is the story of Stephen Daedalus before Ulysses, when he was, as the title states, a Young Man.  My favorite memory of reading this book was when I read the opening aloud to a sick friend who thought that I was messing with her:

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo….

Stephen is of course, baby tuckoo, so this novel is more than just the young man days.   But from this baby story, we quickly jump to Stephen at school and we see an episode that impacted his whole life: boys who were teasing him pushed him into a stagnant pool of water. (more…)

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James Joyce–Dubliners (Part I) (1914) [audiobook 2004–Jim Norton]

Posted in Audiobooks, Drinking, Dublin, Ireland, History, James Joyce, Jim Norton, Marriage Trouble, Religion, Romance, Short Story on October 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: October 5, 2010] Dubliners Part I

I found listening to Ulysses to be rather satisfying.  And, since I have recently commenced an indoor exercise regime, I thought it would be “fun” to listen to some audio books during the workout.  I started with Dubliners because and because Jim Norton is the reader (and I enjoyed his style on the abridged Ulysses) and because I own it.

It’s disconcerting to read/listen to Dubliners after Ulysses because Dubliners is such a conventional collection of stories.  There’s nothing untoward about them, there’s nothing scandalous (except for drinking and mistreating wives), and there’s nothing to be confused about (except maybe early 20th century Irish political references).  But one thing that  is abundantly clear is that Joyce was a great writer, right from the get go.

This disc’s stories are mostly between 10 and 21 minutes long, although “A Little Cloud” runs to half an hour.  The titles included in Part I are:

The Sisters
An Encounter
Araby
Eveline
After the Race
Two Gallants
The Boarding House
A Little Cloud
Counterparts
Clay

I’m not really going to review the quality of the audio.  It is uniformly very good, with Norton conveying accents wonderfully.  And those accents really bring the stories to life.  There is music in between each story, and the songs are all relevant to the time, if not the individual story. As with most of these audio books, it could be mixed louder, but that’s a minor quibble. (more…)

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James Joyce–Ulysses (1922) [abridged audiobook 2000–Jim Norton & Marcella Riordan]

Posted in Death, Drinking, Dublin, Ireland, Irish Writer, James Joyce, Jim Norton, Language, Marcella Riordan, Masturbation, Prostitution, Sex on October 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: September 27, 2010] Ulysses [abridged]

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I decided to listen to the abridged version of Ulysses as well (what’s 4 more hours of my life?).  (This edition is by Naxos, which Amazon is selling as a download).  I decided that the main reason was that since I have the text so fresh in my mind, it would be interesting to see what they abridged.  I mentioned in a recent post that the abridged version is 4 discs (just under 5 hours).  That is a serious abridgment, from 40 to 5 hours (actually the Naxos unabridged version is only 22 discs…how come theirs is so much shorter?  It seems that Jim Norton reads much faster).  And I am curious to see what they consider the “essential” text of the book.  Plus, realistically, I would never really want to do it at a later date.

So this version is read by two different people: Jim Norton (who read Dubliners, Portrait, and an abridged Finnegans Wake too) and Marcella Riordan.  There are a number of places where the two interact (she is Molly in the early scene in bed and she is some of the whores in the nightwon scene…it adds some real dramatic resonance to the story). (more…)

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