American pronunciation and accents wreck good book

Would you try another book written by Rudyard Kipling or narrated by Shelly Frasier?

I would try another book by Kipling - I already have Kim but I wouldn't buy a book written by an English author read by Ms Frasier. I can forgive appalling pronunciation of such place names as Bideford and Clovelly but to pronounce Stalky as Starky and Beetle as Beedle makes it hard to keep track of a well loved book. In fact, if I didn't know the book well, I would have given up somewhere in the middle of chapter 2. When words such as row are mispronounced, I am appalled. If one hasn't read the book hearing about a row (as in the boat race) when in fact it should be a row of the heated variety (to rhyme with bough) it would be difficult to understand what is happening. The use of accents in narrated books is commendable, but the Devon accent is transformed into an Irish type of voice and the Irish accents of the Colonel and Turkey have a mid-Atlantic feel. To say I was disappointed is a gross misunderstatement.

Which character – as performed by Shelly Frasier – was your favourite?

I didn't like any of the characters, whom I know and like from reading the book, in this version.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I love the book, I hated this version of it.

Any additional comments?

If you are going to sell classic English books please let people know the narrator is not English so that they can decide if to buy it.

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4 people found this helpful

Poor choice of narrator

It's not that the narrator is bad, but that she made no effort to get the pronounciation correct. In a book where the dialogue is variously in 19th century English slang, French, Latin, & Devon dialect this leads to a performance where. there's something jarring in every chapter.

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1 person found this helpful

A Real Joy

This book was my childhood favourite and I still know it more or less by heart. I was delighted when I saw it was available on Audible. I have to say I was somewhat disconcerted however when I started listening to discover that the narrator is (a) female and (b) American - I didn't think that would be at all in keeping with the quintessentially English public school nature of the book - but as the story progressed this didn't matter at all - the narrator picked up all the right nuances and I found it an excellent listen. It was a real joy to revisit this old friend. Highly recommended !

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Execrable!

This wonderful classic was absolutely ruined for me by the appalling narration! The narrator's attempts at Enlish and Irish accents would have been laughable had they not grated so badly on the ear, coupled with her decision to read all at a breakneck speed made the whole thing completely unlistenable.

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2 people found this helpful