Books on tape

Brian Gear

In 1971 Anthony Powell gave the title Books Do Furnish a Room to one of the novels in his series A Dance to the Music of Time. Today he might have considered calling it Books on Tape Do Furnish a Room, for there are now enough of them to embellish at least a small room from floor to ceiling. The full range of fiction is covered; there is biography, travel and adventure; poetry; and a small amount of drama. Over a few weeks I have been sampling a mere fraction of this largesse, confining myself principally to fiction, with a little travel, biography and poetry as well.

First, since it happens to be a personal favourite, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Re- visited, from Chivers Audio Books, beauti- fully read by Jeremy Irons. He revels in the rich gallery of minor characters: a wonder- ful Anthony Blanche, Boy Mulcaster, Lord Marchmain. Clearly, he is steeped in Brideshead, and his gentle, melancholy style is perfectly suited to the material. (10 cassettes, 11 hours, £40.19).

Of other Chivers productions I particu- larly enjoyed the hard realism of The Captain and the Enemy by Graham Greene. The Captain wins 12-year-old Jim from his father at backgammon — or it may have been chess — and deposits him with' the childless Liza. Subsequent de- velopments are unexpected. Kenneth Bra- nagh has exactly the measure of this masterly work. (4 cassettes, 4 hours, £22.94).

The strength of Brian Moore's thriller The Colour of Blood lies in its unusually sympathetic central character — the Car- dinal Primate of an eastern bloc country, drawn into sinister and violent events. Derek Jacobi's sensitive reading grows in stature along with the beleaguered church- man. (Chivers, 4 cassettes, 5 hours, £22.94).

I suppose these are hardly the columns in which to confess that I have never 'got on' with P. G. Wodehouse. However, I came very close to capitulation with Jonathan Cecil's reading of Right Ho, Jeeves (Chivers, 6 cassettes, 7 hours, £27.54). I cannot imagine it better done; though it may be thought to be equalled by Ian Carmichael's Summer Lightning for the BBC Radio Collection. But purists, beware: this is an abridgement, though you will find no mention of the fact until you open the box. (BBC, 2 cassettes, 3 hours, £5.99).

At the very outset of Cover to Cover's recording of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Maureen O'Brien captures the essence of Jane the child and Jane the woman. This is a piece of magic for which I can find no explanation, nor do I particularly want to. A most beautiful reading, appropriately grave and serious. (15 cassettes, 21 hours 40 minutes, £41.25).

In Persuasion, Anna Massey is a delight — intimate, confidential and gossipy by turns. Miss Austen, of course, has some- thing to do with it. In fact, it is not too fanciful to say that it might almost be Jane herself telling us the story. (6 cassettes, 8 hours, £21).

Other reviewers have made a similar comment about Timothy West's readings of Trollope for Cover to Cover, and having sampled his Framley Parsonage I would not dissent. His port wine voice is addic- tive, his range of characterisation (espe- cially Mrs Proudie) superb. (15 cassettes, 19 hours 40 minutes, £41.25).

The discovery, for me, out of this batch from Cover to Cover was Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. It is set in New York society in the early years of the century. The author clearly had the measure of this world in which 'victims could be flayed by ridicule without the shedding of blood.' A superb reading from Eleanor Bron. (9 cassettes, 12 hours, £30).

I wish Isis Audio Books would not introduce their recordings with music (or Chivers end theirs with a 'commercial). That said, though, I was pleased to renew acquaintance with Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda read by the Australian actor Nigel Graham. Carey's writing is richly obser- vant of both people and place, not less in the chapters dealing with the young Oscar and his grim, naturalist father — a charac- ter based on Philip Gosse. (Isis, 12 casset- tes, 16 hours, £43.64).

What is one to say of Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga? It has its devotees, but for me it obstinately refuses to come to life, either on the page or in Neil Hunt's competent but not greatly illuminating reading of Book One, The Man of Proper- ty. (12 cassettes, 15 hours, £43.64). It is a tribute to the writing and reading of Joe Simpson's Touching the Void that there were times when it was almost too painful. Simpson broke his leg while climb- ing a remote Peruvian mountain with only one companion. Gene Foad enters so completely into the experience that I felt I was intruding on private grief. (5 cassettes, 5 hours 20 minutes, £25.24).

Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is read at a mad gallop by Richard Mitchley. Newby is marvellously funny about anything from the rag trade to learning to climb mountains, but I felt I was being rushed past the jokes by a rather impatient guide. (8 cassettes, 7 hours 45 minutes, £33.29).

Now for the less than complete works, all on two cassettes. Argo first, and an exception to the practice of abridgement: five of M. R. James's ghost stories. They are so well read by Michael Hordern that only those with nerves of steel will play this tape at bedtime. (2 hours 15 minutes).

Robert Hardy gives a bravura perfor- mace in Four Sherlock Holmes Stories. He refuses to play Watson as a half-wit, and slips with relish into Holmes and the other characters. Pure pleasure; do not hesitate. These may be slightly abridged; the docu- mentation is ambiguous. (2 hours 30 mi- nutes).

With Judi Dench and Silas Marner we enter the more controversial area of abridged classic novels. I must say I en- joyed this, not least because of Miss Dench's beautiful and simple reading she goes straight to the heart of each scene and character — though the action moves at a pace which might have surprised George Eliot. (2 hours 45 minutes).

Prunella Scales has just the right voice for the urban Flora Poste pitched into rural madness in Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. I found the joke soon began to wear a little thin, but my mood had already been soured by introductory guitar music and train 'effects' for Flora's journey to Howl- ing. (2 hours).

But I have nothing but praise for Argo's Betjeman reads Betjeman. The first cassette contains shorter poems, the second a selec- tion from Summoned by Bells. Was ever a poet so acutely conscious of smells, good or bad; or the romance of trade names; or the spice of slang? And surely no actor ever had so beautiful a voice. (Argo, 1 hour 30 minutes).

'Permission to write some crass, jingoistic doggerel, Sir?' Argo cassettes sell at £6.99; Listen for Pleasure are a pound less, and at that rate about three hours of David Copperfield, excellently read by Anton Rodgers, is good value. Only the individual can decide whether or not he would ultimately find it frustrating to be deprived of the rest of the book.

The policy of casting star names has come badly unstuck with Rowan Atkinson in Tom Brown's Schooldays. There are too many narrowly avoided stumbles; the pace is too slow; he commits the howler, when introducing the book, of giving the au- thor's surname a soft final `s'; and it is not very long before we hear `stren'th' and len'th'. (2 hours).

I also have reservations about a selection from The Canterbury Tales in Coghill's modern English translation abridged and adapted for recording and read by Prunella Scales and Martin Starkie. Giving Alison's lines in The Miller's Tale to Miss Scales disturbs the unity of the narrative; still less did I like her 'chicken voice' for Pertelote in The Priest's Tale. (3 hours).

But the England of the Sixties, as seen through the usually rather glazed eyes of Clive James, is another matter. The Young Aussie's Tale (otherwise Falling Towards England) is full of startled and often baffled observations told in his own inimit- able Sydney twang. (3 hours).

Finally, the BBC Radio Collection, which sells at £5.99. High praise for Robert Powell's Epic Poems — a catch-all title for such disparate pieces as How Horatius Held the Bridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Morte d'Arthur and others. A beautiful voice and great intelligence com- bine to stimulate reassessment of these old war-horses. (2 hours 30 minutes).

John Mortimer's reading of his auto- biography, Clinging to the Wreckage, is nearly sunk by somebody's idea of appropriate music. Also, there is no indica- tion that the original has been abridged. However, enough Mortimer remains for enjoyment — including the information that as a boy he enjoyed the Jeeves stories so much than his ambition was to become a butler. (2 hours 30 minutes).

Chivers Audio Books are stocked by Har- rods and Foyles; or are obtainable from Chivers Press Publishers, Windsor Bridge Road, Bath, Avon, BA2 3AX.

Cover to Cover is mail order only: P. 0. Box 112, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 3 UG .

Isis Audio Books are available for purch- ase or rental from 55 St. Thomas's Street, Oxford, OX1 1JG.

Argo, Listen for Pleasure, and BBC tapes are available in some book and record shops. In case of difficulty, for Argo and Listen for Pleasure contact EMI Records (UK), 1-3 Uxbridge Road, Hayes, Mid- dlesex, UB4 OSY; and for BBC tapes, BBC, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London, W12 OTT.