Incoming rant re authors turned narrators
Voice acting and narrating audio books is an art, and I absolutely hate when the author steps in to narrate just for the sake of it when there’s a perfectly good voice actor who could have gotten paid to do the job WELL and elevated the experience for the listener.
It completely takes me out of the listening experience to have to a clearly amateur reader narrating the book.
I decided to listen to A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was a childhood fave, while I do some cleaning and organizing. I got through books 1 and 2 and was delighted by the narrator, Tim Curry’s, performance — only to get to book 3 and be bamboozled by a completely different narrator. Turns out the author, Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket decided that he would read books 3 through 5….just for …shits and giggles?
Don’t get me wrong. I RESPECT writers and, in particular, appreciate Handler for this creation, which got me through many nights as a kid. But goddamnit if this man’s voice isn’t grating and simply not a good fit for narration.
Apparently after book 5 he quit narrating because he found it to be “unbelievably arduous.” No shit! Leave the narration to the professionals! Not only have you disrupted the listening experience for millions of readers, many of whom are neurodivergent and need continuity in the narration to stay engaged, but you’ve single-handedly diminished the overall listening quality of an otherwise excellent audiobook series.
I should note this frustration extends to screenwriters and playwrights who perform in their own work without the acting chops to back it up. I’m looking at you Issa Rae. Leave the acting to the chronically out of work and underpaid actors (and I’m not talking about the top billing ones). Lots of relatively unknown actors supplement their income with voice acting and do a damn good job. Let them!!