2010-10-09

Austen to my ears

My mother-in-law is visually impared, she has macular degeneration and she is slowly loosing her eyesight. She is, however, not dejected by this and actually, she reads more than she ever has, thanks to the audio book service of the public libraries.

Her newest toy is a Victorreader Stream, a sweet little gadget, and I am it´s keeper, which means I copy the files from the dvd-s onto a memory card. My reward for this, apart from the satisfaction of having helped her, is that I save any books I might care to "read" for myself and copy them onto my own mp3-player. No harm in that, I think. Not that listening to books is my prefered way of reading. I tend to fall asleep or start thinking of other things. But once in a while I will listen to one.

The other day, I listened to "Pride & Prejudice" by Jane Austen. I have read it many times before and I have four adaptions to film and television in my dvd-collection, so I am no stranger to the story. This was the first time I "read" the swedish translation, however, and I must say, it is ok. Austen is one of those authors who´s work I tend to remember lines from, I think she is fabulously witty and clever. No translation can be as sharp as the original text, but I also felt that the woman who read the book, she is an actress and read with great expression, had misunderstood some scenes. And that made it difficult for me to make any real assessment of the text itself.

Still, Austen is always, always, enjoyable. Austen is what I would bring to my desert island.

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