The
only known recording of the Sherlock Holmes creator. He would die three years
later. Fascinating stuff. He explains what bugged him about earlier detective
stories, and how he changed all of that with the character of Holmes.
Is
it me, or is his Scottish accent a heckuvalot nearer today’s standard American
accent than the Scots we hear in the media today?
Few literary voices are as hard for me to reconcile with the
author’s actual speaking voice as William Faulkner’s.
How could the man who penned lines
like these, sound like a character right out of the Andy Griffith show? His
readers may call him William, and his friends may have called him Bill, but
after listening to that folksy, high-pitched twang, I feel like we should all just call him “Pappy.”
Rudyard Kipling. Fount of manly fiction. Bearer of burly eyebrows. Speaker of… a surprisingly effeminate, mousy little voice. Have a listen:
Could that be the voice of a retirng bank clerk? Sure. Or a sniveling apothecary? Absolutely. But a spinner of adventure tales? Voice of British Imperialism? And author of “If,” that ultimate poem of manhood?
Whodathunkit? (But man, those eyebrows are amazing!)
We often become so familiar with the distinctive literary voice of an author, that it can be somewhat jarring to hear their actual speaking voice. Unless, of course, that author happens to be F. Scott Fitzgerald. Then you have no choice but to be lulled into a peaceful slumber by his dulcet, velvet voice.
I don’t know why I was so struck to hear the audio recording of Walt Whitman below. I guess since the man’s been dead for a hundred and twenty years, I was stunned to discover that such a recording even existed. But what really amazes me is his accent- or his near lack of one by today’s standards.
Outside of a couple non-rhotic ‘r’s on “or” and “earth-” and a short ‘a’ pronunciation that sounds like more like a short ‘e,’ the man sounds more like me than, say, FDR or Kathryn Hepburn, two more recent figures from his mid-Atlantic neck of the woods.
And old Walt’s got a voice for tv or radio, don’t you think? This recitation could pass for voiceover work for the US Office for Travel and Tourism. I’ll post the text of the poem below:
America
By Walt Whitman
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
If you enjoy the sing-song cadence of a lilting Irish Brogue, then you’ll enjoy this recording of James Joyce reading from Finnegans Wake. (But if you’re anything like me you’ll probably end up scratching your head, because the man might as well be reading Lorem ipsum placeholder text, for all the sense it makes.)
This is one book I’m pretty sure I’ll never work my way up to. Ever. (But I’ll place the text below in case you want to try.)
Well, you know or don’t you kennet or haven’t I told you every telling has a taling and that’s the he and the she of it. Look, look, the dusk is growing! My branches lofty are taking root. And my cold cher’s gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at? It saon is late. ‘Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw Waterhouse’s clogh. They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh. When will they reassemble it? O, my back, my back, my bach! I’d want to go to Aches-les-Pains. Pingpong! There’s the Belle for Sexaloitez! And Concepta de Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we spread them here now? Ay, we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and I’ll spread mine on mine. Flep! It’s what I’m doing. Spread! It’s churning chill. Der went is rising. I’ll lay a few stones on the hostel sheets. A man and his bride embraced between them. Else I’d have sprinkled and folded them only. And I’ll tie my butcher’s apron here. It’s suety yet. The strollers will pass it by. Six shifts, ten kerchiefs, nine to hold to the fire and this for the code, the convent napkins, twelve, one baby’s shawl. Good mother Jossiph knows, she said. Whose head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are alle her childer, say? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be to them farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no more, more again lost alla stranger. I’ve heard tell that same brooch of the Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dunders de Dunnes in Markland’s Vineland beyond Brendan’s herring pool takes number nine in yangsee’s hats. And one of Biddy’s beads went bobbing till she rounded up lost histereve with a marigold and a cobbler’s candle in a side strain of a main drain of a manzinahurries off Bachelor’s Walk. But all that’s left to the last of the Meaghers in the loup of the years prefixed and between is one kneebuckle and two hooks in the front. Do you tell me. that now? I do in troth. Orara por Orbe and poor Las Animas! Ussa, Ulla, we’re umbas all! Mezha, didn’t you hear it a deluge of times, ufer and ufer, respund to spond? You deed, you deed! I need, I need! It’s that irrawaddyng I’ve stoke in my aars. It all but husheth the lethest zswound. Oronoko! What’s your trouble? Is that the great Finnleader himself in his joakimono on his statue riding the high horse there forehengist? Father of Otters, it is himself! Yonne there! Isset that? On Fallareen Common? You’re thinking of Astley’s Amphitheayter where the bobby restrained you making sugarstuck pouts to the ghostwhite horse of the Peppers. Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread your washing proper! It’s well I know your sort of slop. Flap! Ireland sober is Ireland stiff Lord help you, Maria, full of grease, the load is with me! Your prayers. I sonht zo! Madammangut! Were you lifting your elbow, tell us, glazy cheeks, in Conway’s Carrigacurra canteen? Was I what, hobbledyhips? Flop! Your rere gait’s creakorheuman bitts your butts disagrees. Amn’t I up since the damp dawn, marthared mary allacook, with Corri- gan’s pulse and varicoarse veins, my pramaxle smashed, Alice Jane in dec and my oneeyed mongrel twice run over, soaking and bleaching boiler rags, and sweating cold, a widow like me, for to deck my tennis champion son, the laundryman with the lavandier flannels? You won your limpopo limp fron the husky hussars when Collars and Cuffs was heir to the town and your slur gave the stink to Carlow. Holy Scamander, I sar it again! Near the golden falls. Icis on us! Seints of light! Zezere! Subdue your noise, you hamble creature! What is it but a blackburry growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns. Are you meanam Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory? I meyne now, thank all, the four of them, and the roar of them, that draves that stray in the mist and old Johnny MacDougal along with them. Is that the Poolbeg flasher beyant, pharphar, or a fireboat coasting nyar the Kishtna or a glow I behold within a hedge or my Garry come back from the Indes? Wait till the honeying of the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die! We see that wonder in your eye. We’ll meet again, we’ll part once more. The spot I’ll seek if the hour you’ll find. My chart shines high where the blue milk’s upset. Forgivemequick, I’m going! Bubye! And you, pluck your watch, forgetmenot. Your evenlode. So save to jurna’s end! My sights are swimming thicker on me by the shadows to this place. I sow home slowly now by own way, moyvalley way. Towy I too, rathmine.Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia, trinkettoes! And sure he was the square old buntz too, Dear Dirty Dumpling, foostherfather of fingalls and dotthergills. Gammer and gaffer we’re all their gangsters. Hadn’t he seen dams to wive him? And every dam had her seven crutches. And every crutch had its seven hues. And each hue had a differing cry. Sudds for me and supper for you and the doctor’s bill for Joe John. Befor! Bifur! He married his markets, cheap by foul, I knkow, like and Etrurian Catholic Heathen, in their pinky limony creamy birnies and their turkiss indienne mauves. But at milidmass who was the spouse? Then all that was was fair. Tys Elvenlan! Teems of times and happy returns. The seim anew. Ordovico or viricordo. Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle’s to be. Northmen’s thing made southfolk’s place but howmulty plurators made eachone in person? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into oure eryan! Hircus Civis Eblanensis! He had buck goat paps on him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom. Lord save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering daughters of. Whawk?Can’t hear the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome? What Thom Malone? Can’t hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffeying waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won’t moos. I feel as old as yonder elm. A tale of Shaun or Shem? All Livia’s daughter-sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me the John or Shaun? Who were Shem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now! Tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters of. Night!
Sometimes we
become so immersed in the distinctiveliterary voiceof an author, that when we
hear that same author's actual speaking voice, it can be a little jolting. My little brother forwarded me this interview at the
passing of Mike Wallace last week. Take a moment to soak up Ayn Rand’s arrant views,
as delivered through her strong Russian accent and cigarette-scorched voicebox.
So …Ayn Rand.
Some people have
problems with her Objectivist philosophy. Others take issue with her
Godlessness. Still other criticize her characters and her writing. But why on earth do I never hear one word about her love scenes? She’s got a little bit of a rape fantasy
she’s trying to work through, and to me at least, it’s a little unsettling. And
the exchange on the subject of love embedded above (about 8:00 in) doesn't exactly help. In case you didn’t
watch to the end, here is the excerpt I’m talking about:
Rand: You love only those who deserve it.
Wallace: And then, if a man is weak, or a woman is
weak, then she is beyond, he is beyond, love?
Rand: He certainly doesn’t deserve it. He
certainly is beyond- he can always correct it. Man has free will. If a man
wants love, he should correct his weaknesses or his flaws, and he may deserve
it. But he cannot expect the unearned, either in love, or in money; either in method
or in spirit.
Wallace: But you have lived in our world and you
realize, recognize the fallibility of human beings. There are very few of us,
then, in this world, by your
standards, who are worthy of love.
In the past we’ve explored the jarring disconnect between the literary voice of an author, and their actual speaking voice (see Hemingway and Woolf, for example.) Today though, we see how those two types of voice can meld together and accentuate one another perfectly, as Jack Kerouac reads from his rambling beat classic, On the Road:
I’ve never actually read monsieur Kerouac- something I’ll have to remedy before this novel becomes a movie on May 23rd. But listening to the assonance and rhythm of his writing, one can’t help but wonder if he was influenced by the late, great Dr. Seuss. What do you think?
Sometimes we become so immersed in the distinctive literary voiceof an author, that when we hear that same author's actual speaking voice, it can be a little jolting.
Because of his use of short, declarative sentences, Hemingway is often praised as a pioneer of economical and understated prose. But one listen to his slow, halting speech in this recording, and you may be convinced that that simple style was all he was capable of.
A little digging seems to reveal that this is Hemingway’s own parody of his widely-panned novel Across the River and Into the Trees, which we’ve talked about before. Whether he was inebriated when he recorded this is left to question. But it’s worth a listen in either case.
Sometimes we become so immersed in the distinctive literary voice of an author, that when we hear that same author's actual speaking voice, it can be a little jolting. Have a listen below, and try to tell me that Virginia Woolf doesn't remind you just a little bit of Dame Edna:
