Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I would define "reading" as the intake and comprehension of letters spelling words and where there is no intermediary interpretation between the reader and the text. Braille is reading. The visually impaired who can neither see to read nor use Braille to access a text but listen to audio are not reading, IMO, but there's no judgment involved in that. For about five months last year I couldn't see to read and very grateful I was that I already loved audiobooks, although I'm not trying to trump a discussion by citing a temporary disability, which would be infamous. For me the reality is that sight and hearing are different senses both as absolutes and as applied to texts.
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OK, so if the sticking point is the intermediary, do you make an exception for books ready by their author? With such books, there's no additional interpreter; surely the author isn't going to read the book with an interpretation contrary to what he or she intended.
And as I mentioned upthread, text-to-speech offers no interpretation; it's just words, not performance.
In any case, realistically, how much of an effect on the story itself does a narrator actually have? The story is the story, regardless of nuance, and the overall feeling is pretty much the same no matter who the narrator is. Most readings aren't subject to wildly differing interpretations.