I rode into the mountains today to visit my mother, sister and grandparents. Lately, I have gotten into the habit of listening to various audio-books when I drive any lengthy amount of time. Only being about a three hour (round trip) drive I decided to take along a collection of Clark Ashton Smith stories to listen to instead of starting a full length book.
I stayed for dinner, and did not start back until after 7:00, so it was already dark. The night tonight was perfect for listening to CAS. There were tons of overly dramatic clouds racing about the sky, allowing the full moon to highlight their shapes and occasionally peak through to remind me it was still there. The traffic was very light, so I found myself almost entranced by the spell of the language as the stories were being read. Eventually, "The Willow Landscape" came on, and the narrator's voice was instantly evocative and haunting, and seemed all to familiar. I could not place it at first, but I knew I had heard the voice somewhere before. It soon dawned on me that the voice was none other than Gollum (performed by Brother Theodore) from The Hobbit animated TV movie that was reading to me. The reading was complete with the masterful use of vocal dynamics, the rising and falling of tone and volume and of course those wonderful rolling "R"s that Brother Theodore is famous for.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my "geek moment" of the week, as I realized that Gollum was reading Clark Ashton Smith to me. I couldn't help but smile, and giggle just a bit to myself.
5 comments:
I love audio books for the car. I just 'discovered' them last year, when I was driving across country and back to last six books of the Harry Potter series. I was hooked, and now I'm making my way through Lord of the Rings (not the BBC production, which I have now received as a gift and had to give away twice). Love it!
I have been plotting an audio attempt at The Double Shadow for the Eldritch Dark. I really like the Master of the Crabs story there, a fun listen.
Many of the Clark Ashton Smith recordings are either recorded badly or the reader just irritates the hell out of me. If by "audio attempt" you mean that you might try to record your own reading I would be an enthusiastic supporter of that idea. LibriVox is always looking for new talent, and all of the CAS poens and stories are in the public domain now. Bat, you should go for it!
Yes, some of those Clark Ashton Smith readings are....difficult, to be polite.
If I do a reading I will have a couple of others handy for weird sound effects and added voices, which The Double Shadow only needs one extra person for.
Bat,
Good luck with that, and keep me in the loop once it is finished... so I can blog about it! ;-)
Later man!
Shane
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