Tea at Trianon: In Defense of Audiobooks

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, February 20, 2025

In Defense of Audiobooks

I am pretty much addicted to audiobooks. From Steam Calliope Scherzos:

If I can try my hand at a bit of mind reading, I would guess that one major reason that the left-liberal contingent of the internet is so strongly pro-audiobook is that they, more than anyone, recognize that there is no Platonic ideal for the act of reading. Many of them are, in fact, forced to recognize this, since they work in academia or at least have graduate degrees in the humanities, and in earning them they have observed that academics are some of the worst book-abusers around. If you spend some time seeing how academics operate, you quickly notice how they go through dozens of books a week during research projects, searching aggressively for some small shred of information and discarding the rest, like a small child who wants to eat the cake frosting while ignoring the actual pastry. Professors don’t really read books so much as rape them. And it’s hard to go through the process of earning an advanced degree without familiarizing yourself with this cavalier attitude that the academics have. You slowly internalize that not all acts of reading are the same.
But once you acknowledge that, you can understand that the kind of reading you engage in should depend on what you’re trying to accomplish with a given text. The professors might take things too far, but they aren’t completely idiotic for accepting that learning is a rough-hewn and imperfect process. Many normal people will refuse to touch dense or obscure writers like Ezra Pound or James Joyce because as soon as they give The Cantos or Ulysses a try, they’ll think, “Oh dear, I’m only one page into this massive thing, and I’m already lost.” But an academic, no matter how ignorant of Joyce or Pound’s wide-ranging liberal arts references, will feel undeterred, opting to plow through the writing no matter how indelicately, until finally he stumbles upon something that resonates with him, at which point he’ll say, “Ah! There we go! I have a quote! I will use this and appear very clever, hee hee hee…” And again, this is all very crass. But nevertheless, there is a touch of wisdom in this approach that most people can benefit from.
There is no “pure” way to read anything, but there are many different kinds, all of which have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.
Speed reading, for instance, often results in poor comprehension and bad memory retention, but it can be quite useful in some instances, particularly when you’re reading a nonfiction work and you’re only interested in a particular theme or topic within it. It also can be useful when you’ve been excessively slow and deliberate in your reading, trying to look up every unfamiliar word and reference. A good speed-reading once over can give you a feel for a text’s proportionality, its weight, and its sense of direction. The key to speed reading is to always remain conscious of your eye muscles, making sure to engage them as you dart your line of vision back and forth from left to right.
Then, there’s a kind of reading in which you internally enunciate the text to yourself, integrating it with your own internal monologue — reaching a point just shy of having your lips start to move. This makes for a more impactful way to read novels, particularly intricately written ones. When you can tell that an author has really worked on creating a distinct literary voice, one that suggests a well-crafted personality or ethos underpinning it, you should internally vocalize the writing for maximum appreciation. (Read more.)