Alias Grace

The story is great, I\’m not sure it translates well to narration. Firstly, I saw the mini series first and was put off when I heard the narrator wasn\’t using an accent. it was also difficult for me to follow characters because the narrator used the same gentle voice fir all of them. Chapters would also be divided by these documents like letters and newspaper articles and I struggled to understand the shift in perspective and language at first. Could just be a processing issue on my part. I thought the story was great, there were some unanswered questions (not plot holes!) that I don\’t mind, but I know a lot of people have hang ups about that. I think the writers note at the end tied the story together nicely.

I\’m 2/3 of the way through. It\’s Atwood, it\’s a good story, I\’ll finish it. The narrator, though, well – you should listen to this book but by another narrator. 1) This woman does not know how to pronounce the English language. \”Untoward\” is pronounced \”Un. TOOwerd.\” See the review entitled \”Pronunciation\” for many more examples. 2) Also, Atwood uses some ballad verses and some 19th c actual verses, which this narrator CANNOT READ AT ALL. She mashes the verse, springs the rhymes, and manages to mess up both the beauty of the language AND the meaning, so that as a listener, you\’re left asking \”huh?\” 3) Monotone. She reads the entire book – police reports, letters, first person narrative – in a monotonous monotone, completely flat except where she emphasizes the wrong damn syllable. It makes the whole thing a kind of a pleasant drone without sense.

I wanted to love this audiobook. I really did. And maybe with a different narrator I would have, but I was so incredibly bored with the performance that I almost returned it. The delivery of the text was horrifyingly flat, and as interesting as hip hop night at the bingo hall.

I wish I had known before listening that this novel was inspired by true events–something the author makes clear in her afterward. It would have made listening to long stretches where not too much happens more intriguing–as Atwood tries to imagine what might have gone into the making of the horrific double murder with which Grace is charged and of which she claimed to have no recollection. Grace appears to be a very prim woman, seemingly incapable of participating in such an atrocity–so much so that a variety of evangelists and spiritualists lobby tirelessly for her pardon. The novel revolves around the efforts of a young doctor seeking to make a name for himself in the newly developing field of psychology to get to the bottom of her story. As I mentioned, the book is slow at times but does have its moments of high tension–I confess that it is one of those that I like better in retrospect than when I was actually listening to it.

The story was intriguing and the characters were somewhat interesting but I struggled to get past the narration. There was almost no change in pitch timbre or strength when switching from one character to another. It was very hard to follow as you could only tell who was speaking based on the context of the dialogue. In the days of digital recordings it would be easy enough to add another narrator to this story.

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