Voices

A friend recently asked the question 'do you hear the voice of narration when you read?'

Generally I don't: I think I go too quickly for the words to be formed fully by a voice. But I have noticed that when reading the work of someone I know (whether from real life or from the radio!), I can hear their voice in the narrative. In fiction, this has been most profound when reading novels by Melvyn Bragg whose voice is so distinctive on radio 4, and by Caron Freeborn, whom I know well. Caron's narrative technique is particularly concerned with the recreation of idiom so perhaps consciousness of sound is not surprising when reading her work.

Today I'm reading some literary criticism by a man who used to be professor of Medieval and Renaissance lit here so I remember his voice from lectures. It feels as though he is talking about Gower to me himself!

PS I am aware of the bus effect with my blog: you wait a month for a post to arrive... then two come at once :-)