Armchair Audies Category Report: Solo Narration - Male

The Audies are this week! You know what that means, dear readers: much Armchair Audies posting about them now, but then I'll shush a bit for a year. (Ha. I will not.)

Here's the slate of nominees for Solo Narration - Male:

BEING THERE Jerzy Kosinski Read by Dustin Hoffman (Audible, Inc.) Read the review
THE ABSOLUTIST John Boyne Read by Michael Maloney (Tantor Media) Read the review
BEAUTIFUL RUINS Jess Walter Read by Edoardo Ballerini (Harper Audio) Read the review
THE END OF THE AFFAIR Graham Greene Read by Colin Firth (Audible, Inc.) Read the review
THE TAO OF POOH Benjamin Hoff Read by Simon Vance (Tantor Media) Read the review

Now, I've already commented on each of these separately (Being There, The Absolutist, Beautiful Ruins, The End of the Affair, The Tao of Pooh), so I won't go too much into it. But I'll say this: we're looking here for "distinction in audiobooks" here. And for me, one of those parameters is, do I think this is more compelling than the text alone would be? Another: does the narrator do so good a job that I start looking for more narration by him (or her, but that's n/a in this category) and pick up audiobooks I wouldn't necessarily have looked at otherwise?

Beautiful Ruins succeeds magnificently on both scores. I actually started this book on paper, and didn't

get very into it before the library due date, so I returned it. But it was part of The Rooster competition, so I went back to it in audio, and oh, baby. It's grand. Ballerini brings such life to Walter's text (which I should have given a fairer chance, as it's quite magnificent and you should read or listen to it if you haven't already.) So Ballerini is my pick for the win, and it will be a very well-deserved one. (It's also up for Audiobook of the Year, and I'm expecting it to take that, too.)

2nd place: Maloney reading The Absolutist. It's a great book, very well read.

Then Firth reading The End of the Affair, then Hoffman reading Being There, and finally - and I know this is a shocking thing, but the book: blah and Piglet: gah - Vance reading The Tao of Pooh.

(Sorry, Simon Vance! You're still my #1 audio crush! Read different things and I'm there.)

Being There

Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
(originally published 1970, this version Audible, 2012)
Format: Audible download (narrated by Dustin Hoffman)

From Goodreads: "Jerzy Kosinski’s clever parable of a naive man thrust into the modern world is more pointed now than ever. Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man, The Graduate), perhaps best known for his portrayals of vulnerable characters and antiheroes, gives an understated and exemplary performance of this satiric look at the unreality of American media culture.

Chance, the enigmatic gardener, becomes Chauncey Gardiner after getting hit by a limo belonging to a Wall Street tycoon. The whirlwind that follows brings Chance to his new status of political policy advisor and possible vice presidential candidate. His garden-variety political responses, inspired by television, become heralded as visionary, and he is soon a media icon due to his unknown background and vague, yet appealing, conversational nature. Being There was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film, starring Peter Sellers as Chance, in 1979."

Oh, humor. You crack me up.

In this case, my teen and I both cracked up, repeatedly - like, pause the book so we could laugh freely cracking up, throughout the 3 hours of this audio. Kosinski's deadpan portrait of Chance's life is relentless in its take-down of media and politics. Chance himself is that naive blank slate that suits the Pooh/Tao template so well (we listened to this right after the Hoff book, and a more 'Taoist by default' character I've rarely seen.) (Except for every other time someone creates a character with little agency of his own so we can see the world act upon him and thereby learn something about ourselves. I'm looking at you, Forrest Gump.)

I haven't seen the Sellers movie in a long while - the library will help me take care of that soon - but from what I remember, it's very faithful to the book. (Makes sense, given that Kosinski did the screenplay.) In other words, it's funny, too.

Hoffman's understated affability suited the narration brilliantly. He has a friendly, trustworthy tone - "laconic and matter-of-fact," as a reporter describes Chance - and leaves the listener free to snap up the parody throughout. I wish his voices were a bit more differentiated, but it wasn't ever hard to follow. Still, the few times the text moves out of Chance's proximity, I would have liked a shift to show the sharper minds at play. Otherwise, this is a vivid reading, and a guaranteed good time if you're at all fond of satire.