P.U.N.C.H now available on Audible.com
"Read all about it!" That was a common cry I'd hear from newspaper sellers on street corners of London when I was growing up.
But how things change! The French expression, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" (the more things change, the more they remain the same) I think might be challenged by the advent of listening to books rather than reading them. I am thinking about this because of having recently narrated an Audible version of my novel, P.U.N.C.H., which can be found on audible.com.
There are definite advantages to listening, as opposed to reading. For one thing, good writing is like music, as it should sound pleasing to the ear. For another, a whole story can be brought into brilliant existence by a narrator, and perhaps even more so when the narrator is the author him/herself, who can convey what was meant, what was emphasised, what each character sounds like, how to tease out each subtle nuance. It's straight from the author's mind to the ear of the listener.
What happens, however, to the co-construction of meaning - the process by which a reader brings more meaning than the author intended because of subconsciously superimposing his or her ideas, thoughts and experiences to the printed page - when that printed page is not read but is listened to? Does the listener still co-construct meaning? Or is the meaning more definitively conveyed by the narrator?
I was riding the tide of the huge changes in education in the 1990s. when online learning came into existence, and I was part of the discussion then as to whether learning would be altered because online students would read rather than listen to class discussions. Now, with the possibility of listening to books rather than reading them, this argument is reversed. Do we agree with Marshall McLuhan when, in 1964 he said, "The medium is the message."
What do you think? How do you think the co-construction of meaning might be altered if a novel is heard rather than read? Or, will it be altered at all?