Daisy said on 2013/01/24 at 3:48 pm
I found out this week about a new Ruth Rendall book that is being published in audio soon. I can't remember which one it is though. It might be Tigerlily's Orchids but I'm not sure. It is going to be available commerically in audio, and you can either have abridged or unabridged. Fantiastic!
I looked at the times for each version though, the abridged is about 3 hours 30 minutes, but the unabridged is 9 hours something. Have they actually left anything but the bare bones of the story??
I know the point of abridged titles is to make them shorter, but this seems a little excessive to me, am I the only one?
norman said on 24/01/2013 at 3:48 pm
I would never ever read an abridged version of a book, I can't see the point of it.
There is also another point that no one has mentioned. What about the author?
As a writer myself ( in a small way ) I would not want my efforts curtailed just for the sake of brevity.
I want my readers to gain the full story, no abridgement however good can retain yhe essence of a book.
I presume authors are consulted about abridgements, so I can only assume that they don't care much about their creations.
Norman
RPB said on 11/11/2012 at 10:10 pm
Obviously, I don't get round to reading these forums very often. This is quite an old subject, but I feel very strongly that unabridged versions are the ones to read. I belong to a local book club and get audio versions of the books we choose while everyone else reads a print version. If I can't get an unabridged version, then I don't read it. I want to have tead the same version everyone else has. That applies to any book I want to read. I want to read the whole thing, or nothing.
sleepwalk said on 21/08/2012 at 9:10 pm
I don't actually like Ruth Rendell. I don't think she should be trusted to write a shopping list actually. However that is not the point of this response. I would never never never never read anything which is abridged. I think anyone who abridges books should be taken out at dawn and shot. It's like this. If you had to pay full price for your newspaper but somebody gave you only the adverts how would you feel? If the writer put it there in the book then it should be there. The poor writer didn't do it for the good of his health. I know that the point of the abridged version is that it is cheaper but why should we slettle for second best? Sighted people don't. Since when did anyone produce an abridged version of any book in print?
Dora said on 15/08/2012 at 5:31 pm
You are right! Why should we listen to a three-hour book instead of a twelve-hour book? An abridged novel is always a great disappoinmtent indeed!
franl155 said on 20/04/2011 at 5:58 pm
*s* whenever i read a book that's "abridged" I always try to get the full verion to find out what they'd cut! especially children's books - I was amazed to find out how much had been cut out of the kddie version of Nevil Shute's No Highway. but that's reading books, not talking ones.
I did buy some Discworld talking books narrated by Tony Robinson, but they're ever-so-slightly abridged - I have all the books, and know them well, and it throws me when I notice that there's a line or even a few words missing. The RNIB ones are full versions, so I'll wait for them to come around.
With a book as severely abridges as the one you mention, surely it'd cost more to abridge it? someone would have to go through it beforehand and decide what to keep in, and that person would have to be paid. or someone would have to go through the complete recording afterwards and decide what to take out, and that person would expect to be paid, too.
and as Ruth Rendell writes mysteries, how do you know you're getting all the information to find out whodunit?
surely it's up the the listener to decide how long they want to spend hearing a book: a whole book over a weekend or half a book in a few hours?