h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been listening to the audiobooks over the past three or four months. Mostly I listen to them on the bus when I'm going to or coming from work, and I'm currently at the last few chapters of Half Blood Prince. It's not been easy getting there.

I've seen all the films, as many of us have. I think the first one to be released after I started working at the Drafthouse was Goblet of Fire, so I saw that and all the subsequent films there, and the previous ones at home on DVD. Or I might have seen them at the flicks when they were released - I can't remember. I enjoyed them, but I always wanted to read the books knowing, as is usually the case, that the film adaptation of something like Harry Potter is likely to leave much of the novel out and to change other parts of it around, but I had no idea how much has been changed and left out until now. A few months ago I saw a graphic someone had made - it was a picture of an iceberg, with annotations. The tiny bit above the water was called 'The Films' and the huge bit below, 'The Books'. That really does just about sum it up. If I should ever meet the author I'd ask her about that, I think.

The reason it's been difficult to listen to it on the bus, in public... well, there are two, really. Firstly, there have been so many times I wanted to shout 'Put a sock in it, Malfoy', or 'Ron, you dipstick', or 'Fer cryin' out loud Hermione, lighten up'.

But mostly it's been Stephen Fry's delivery. I guess there must have been someone giving him directions during the recording sessions - the producer, perhaps, or a bono fido director, but whoever it was, they went a little over the top in giving Stephen his motivation. There have been chapters where his reading has been seriously OTT, and sometimes bordered on the histrionically dramatic.

One good thing about it though - his reading has been so powerful that, with a few exceptions, it's expunged all mental images of the characters and settings in the films from my mind. His Hagrid sounds just like Robbie Coltrane's; Alan Rickman's Snape was so good it's hard not to see him when Snape is speaking or simply being mentioned, and it's hard not to see Michael Gambon whenever Dumbledore's words are being read (it would have been fascinating to see how Richard Harris' Dumbledore would have developed, had he not died after the second film). You can't really hear the words of Uncle Vernon without seeing Richard Griffith.

I have to say though, that despite Stephen Fry's many talents, and how much we may love him these days just for being Stephen Fry, his French accent isn't very convincing, and his Lancashire accent needs more than a little work. A dialect coach might have been a few bob well spent.

What comes across far more in the books than in the films is the number of institutions and modern day evils that JK Rowling has a pop at. Politicians, political culture and chicanery, religion, jingoism, and others. There's a great deal of social comment, and it's not in the least bit hidden - no reading between the lines is needed. Well played, JK. A straight six into the pavilion.

I've only listened to the first book as an audio, and it was on cassette (!) driving to and from work. It was the american version, read by Jim Dale. I wonder if you'd like that better? There were a few jarring differences, to me, for example the password to Dumbledore's office is Lemondrop instead of Sherbert Lemon, and there was talk of shopping carts instead of trolleys. But for the most part I thought he did a pretty good job.

I don't like Stephen Fry's voice so I've been avoiding the audio books.

I don't like Jim Dale's voice, so we're in accord there (if you see what I mean), and substituting American terms in a series which comes across as being terribly British in its style would be jarring to me too.

I started Deathly Hallows last night on the way home, which reminded me of one other target for JK's ire - intrusive, sensationalist journalism, in the person of Rita Skeeter

Now that Stephen Fry has done such a good job of pushing the images from the films my mind (with the exceptions I mentioned), I wonder if, should I read the books now, I'd only be able to hear his reading and characterisations

whever I read the books I sort of have a mixture of the film and my own ideas in my head, which is ok by me. (it's similar with LOTR these days too)

my #2 and I are thinking of trying the HP audio books though. It will have to be the British version though.

I still haven't figured out why "Sorcerer's Stone" is more appropriate for the American market than "Philosopher's Stone".

And as for the difference between film and book, I still wish we could have seen Rik Mayall's Peeves, the Poltergeist.

I should watch Drop Dead Fred again.

I read some of the early books aloud to my children, before the films were made. I always read Rita Skeeter in a Janet-Street-Porter voice

Oh that's good, B

Rik as Peeves, that would have been good. Mind you, Vivian as Peeves might have been even better

Oh... I just found the most wonderful story about Rik as Peeves.

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/06/never-saw-rik-mayall-harry-potter-movie/

I read all the books except the last one to the Gruesome Twosome, long after they were past the age of being read to. (I couldn't read that last one, I howled like a baby whenever anything bad happened)

and I did the Janet Street Porter too!

Poor Miss Janet... no, not poor Miss Janet at all. I started watching a series recently where she and... half a mo... Brian Turner did one of those travelogue series that are so popular on television these days (and when I say popular I mean there's a lot of them, not necessarily that they're well liked). She did the travelogue bit and he did the cooking.

Dear Bob almighty what an annoying pair She behaves like a spoiled child and he's like a schoolboy who thinks doing everything to excess is just the coolest thing. Brian, at least behaved in a more adult fashion when he was doing his little section of each episode, visiting a local restaurant chef in his kitchen.

And there was that confounded and unrelenting incidental music underlying almost the whole of each episode. I had to away after half a dozen of 'em. Couldn't stand either Brian and Janet, or the music any more.

Here's a direct link to Rik Mayall's sweary interview.

http://youtu.be/S9pioZ9TQ9E

The closer I get to the end of the series (I'm about half way through Deathly Hallows now) the more pronounced are the differences between the books and the films. It's good in a way because so much was changed/left out/already known to the audience because they'd read the books/left to the audience to deduce because they hadn't read the books that there's still plenty of new stuff to discover. It's nowhere near like reading them for the first time, obviously, because I know all the major plots and sub-plots of the story, but it does make it very interesting.

Now, of course, I'm going to have to watch the films again with this new insight into the tale, perhaps after having listened to them all again first because there's so much to take in, to make a comparison.

This must be what it was like for all those people who saw the Lord of the Rings films before they read the books.

I need to find a rainy weekend and watch all the films again, or at least the last 4. I haven't seen the last two yet I think. I know I haven't seen the two parts of Deathly Hallows. I think I've seen half blood prince, but I'm not quite sure of that as I haven't bought the DVD/BD yet. I stopped going to the theatre around Goblet of Fire, I believe. Not because of any weakness of these films, just due to my disenchantment with going to the cinema in general. (Rude children, cell phones, outrageous prices, the transition to 3D which I hated even before my eyes crossed. )

I don't know if I'll ever get around to reading the books again. I think I've gotten to that age. That age my dad has been for as long as I can remember, where he had no use for reruns (even if he didn't see something the first time). I now have an awareness that my life is limited. I never seem to have enough time to enjoy idle pleasures.


I think it's because I seem to waste so much of my time with social meedya.




Speaking of wasting my time, I notice NPR's Spring Fund Drive has started.

Same here with ours. I usually hunt around for another south Texas station that isn't having a pledge drive when that happens, and stream that one during Morning Edition and ATC. Sometimes it's yours; currently it's KSTX in San Antonio.

I'm not supposed to stream media here at work, and the radio reception in my room further limits the very sparse selection of tolerable radio in Houston.

If I can abide a bit of static, I typically switch over to a local community college's classic rock station. I've also got all my CDs and some digital music to listen to which is probably what I'll do at 9 when the combination of fund drive and Diane Rehm drive me away.

The internet keeps going out at work (dear Bob almighty how I loathe DSL), so I often have to listen to all the music I've put on the laptop, which I often do anyway when the internet is working. I could listen to the HP books I suppose, but I'm keeping those for the bus journey to and from work, and besides, the wires from the player to the earbuds catch on *everything* when you're working, and pull them out of your lugholes, and the place is too noisy to listen to any kind of speech over the speakers. If it wasn't I'd spend three nights a week listening to Up All Night on Radio 5 Live.

How I long for the days when I could hear Vin Scully commentating on Dodgers games over the radio, in London, in a van, at night Not heard his voice once since I came here. I know he's semi-retired, or retired and returned, or whatever it is, but it's ironic that I could listen to him thousands of miles away (over the AFN) and yet the control the teams and the radio networks/stations keep on their broadcasts and webcasts, and the strictures they put on listening to them mean, well, you can't. Without money and passwords and accounts

And KSTX has started their pledge drive

I assume all NPR affiliates schedule their fund drives for the same weeks as the national programming leaves time for more local breaks.

You'd think so, but that's not always been the case. Most spring/autumn drives I've been able to move from one to another as the drives rotate. Maybe they've rumbled this ploy

At least (so far) they're just overlapping and not completely in sync. KSTX started theirs today but KUT's began on Tuesday.

Well, KUHF isn't getting a donation from me on this drive, mainly because I try to do all my major donations at year end to avoid confusion and making multiple donations mistakenly. But also because I'm a bit mad at them. They recently picked up The Texas Standard program which airs at 1:00-2:00. This bumped Fresh Air Mon-Thurs. I don't like that, but worse is it also bumps Science Friday, one of my favorite programs. Fresh Air is just interviews, but SciFri is a live show with callers.


Hmm... This sounds like something I might post in the Geezers Converation.

Grump!