This Voice Sounds Familiar
A problem with audiobooks.
I was walking the dog the other day feeling super excited to begin listening to my new audiobook, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus. The story immediately sucked me in. If you haven’t seen the latest Jenna pick—it’s everywhere—Octopus is a bildungsroman about a young college student in Scotland looking to unravel the secret that her divorcing parents are keeping from her.
Despite my deep interest in the story, I noticed that my mind kept wandering as I listened. I found myself restarting chapter two, then I restarted it again. The book felt like something I’d already listened to. Only the story was all wrong. It felt like the themes should feel darker, and it was odd that the novel was set in Scotland. I kept thinking: Something about this book makes me think I should be in the Adirondacks? Now that was weird.
Wait a second, I thought. There’s something familiar about this audiobook narrator, isn’t there?
When I went into Audible to see who narrated The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, I saw that it was Saskia Maarleveld. I also noted that she read the audiobook for The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, a book I listened to just a couple of months before.
That’s why I kept associating the narrator’s voice with the Adirondacks. The God of the Woods is set there, and the narrator did such a fantastic job reading that story, Saskia’s voice had started to feel like the authentic voice of the author herself.
People have very strong feelings about audiobook narrators. Some fans of Audible attach to certain narrators and follow them from book to book. One writer I know loved hearing author Catherine Steadman read her book Something in the Water so much that she listened to all of her other novels, just to stick with her voice; Steadman reads all of her novels herself. Other readers I’ve spoken to have said that if they download a book to listen to and dislike the reader’s voice, they stop listening altogether. It can have nothing to do with the story at all. In other words, narrators can make or break a book on Audible.
It seems as though publishers don’t think repetitive narrators are an issue. Take celebrity audio reader Julia Whelan who has narrated 600 books. Her clear and soothing voice makes so many listeners look forward to the novels she’s worked on. Some of the biggest novels of the last several years have her voice attached: The Women and The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, Funny Story by Emily Henry, and Frozen River by Ariel Lawson. I loved listening to her voice read Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano but I was shocked to discover she read The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave; I didn’t connect with that narrator at all, and it was the same narrator!
Celebrity readers aside… It made me think that audiobook narrators can suffer from the Luke Skywalker problem; if an entertainer does their job well, it’s hard if they try another role. We only see them as that one character or voice. Hence Skywalker! Do you remember actor Mark Hamill in anything of note after Star Wars? Exactly.
Clearly, it’s why I was struggling with the audiobook of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus. Saskia Maarvalend read The God of the Woods with so much tension in her voice, so much depth in her portrayal of the characters, that it’s hard for me to get immersed in this other story. I keep thinking I’m back in the other book.
It begs the question: If a publisher uses the same audiobook narrator for two different New York Times bestselling books, how does that impact the listening experience for a reader? It’s particularly interesting since The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus and The God of the Woods are published by Penguin Random House; they’d know in-house that these were their BIG books. Why choose the same reader?
Clearly, when it comes to Julia Whelan, people can jump from author to author and enjoy the same voice. But for me, if I’m really listening to a book, then that narrator is “marked” by that book in some way. What do you think?
This is a great topic for a rich conversation! I prefer listening to nonfiction and memoir only, because the author tends to read those books aloud themselves. I listened to Ina Garten read her own memoir and she did it perfectly! ;)
Also, if I space out and lose the thread of a novel on audiobook, that bugs me. Not so much with nonfiction.
I didn’t enjoy Octopus at all and had the hardest time getting into it…3 star listen for me. Now I’m wondering if your point about the narrator is the reason!!!