Project 1: Reading Aloud, Chapter 14
I have always been a fan of reading, even in my younger days back in elementary school. All too often my mother or father would venture back to my room to question why my lights were on at 11 PM when I had school the next morning, only to find me sitting in bed, reading some kind of novel that garnered my interest at the time. It was slightly different with the reading of Northanger Abbey though, as the novels I was entranced by in my youth were “modern,” and relatively simple for me to understand at the time, such as the Harry Potter series of books. As I read Northanger Abbey, I felt unlike I usually did when I read novels. Instead of seeing the modern world changed into a work of fiction, either that the change is on such a small scale the events of the book could theoretically exist, or changes so large that the events can only possibly exist in one’s imagination, I saw a world that has since passed by. Unlike other novels I usually read that are set in the past, usually being placed in a fantasy world as well, have a base that lets the modern world understand it somewhat easily. For Northanger Abbey, however, one cannot hope for this to be the case, as the story is set in a modern time, the era during which the book was written and published. As such, it creates a somewhat uneasy feeling, with words I do not understand, sentence structure that requires me to reread it thrice more to understand what was being spoken, and ideas long since cast aside in our modern society. This made Northanger Abbey a book that removed me from the comfort zone I am used to having in the novels I decide to read, and created an interesting experience I was quite thankful for in the end.
The Chapter I was required to read, of course, was Chapter 14. In this chapter, Catherine and the Tilneys’ meet up for a walk, and decide to take this specific walk at the nearby Beechen Cliff. Novels quickly become the subject of choice for a discussion the three have while they walk, started by Catherine mentioning that the scenery of Beechen Cliff reminds her of the southern end of France, an area she read of in her novels, and makes an assumption that Henry himself had never read the novel in question, believing said novel is not intelligent enough to garner his interest. Henry responds to this by saying he was quite a fan of the novel, as well as saying those who don’t enjoy reading a good novel are morons. This prompts Catherine to feel more comfortable with the idea of reading novels, though her usage of the term “nicest” to describe the novel apparently irks Henry, which following a quick comment from Eleanor that he always seems to find flaws in the language of others to complain about, results in him going on a short tirade of how the word “nice” has become a statement one could apply to nearly everything that exists, saying it branched out from simpler meanings such as complimenting articles of clothing or ones values. This encourages Eleanor to engage with Catherine in a short one on one discussion of reading, which results in Eleanor admitting she enjoys history books, which Catherine finds rather boring. After a quick note of how she finds reading things like history books to be “torment,” Eleanor and Henry engage in a conversation of their own, which Catherine is unable to fully understand, making her feel slightly ashamed. She also, upon observing the landscape and declaring her desire to draw as well, resulted in a short explanation of what is picturesque. Following this, Henry goes on to say that a shocking novel will soon be rleased in London, though the phrasing that is used confuses Eleanor into believing a riot will break out in London. Henry initially responds to this with amusement, and then quickly goes on to explain the miscommunication, although in a rather sarcastic manner. The conversation comes to an end soon enough, with Henry poking fun, or rather playfully insulting, the mental state of women, with Eleanor stating that Henry isn’t truly like this, but rather enjoys acting as such on occasion. The chapter comes to an end itself shortly after this, as the Tilneys’ and Catherine disperse, the latter of which briefly crosses paths with Anne, who states that she would not have participated in the walk even if she was invited.
As much as I enjoy reading novels when I have the time, the motivation, and the material to do so, I am fairly new to the idea of reading aloud. As such, it creates newfound problems, and minor confusion, trying to create voices for the characters and narration that match their personality as described in the book, as well as actually putting emotion into the words I read. It made me think of the story in a new light, one I didn’t think of when reading Northanger Abbey to myself, keeping the words on the page locked inside my own mind. In this nature, it helped me see what I had missed before, and made me turn away from the pages for a few seconds so I could discover an unknown words meaning I had simply ignored the first time. With this new way that expanded my vocabulary, even if only by two or three words, I also had to truly think of whom the characters were and who I imagined them to be. Instead of assigning a generic voice in my head which simply kept track of who was talking, I needed to think about each character that was in the brief part of the chapter I did read, and create a voice for them which blended in with their character. This all came to light for me when I audibly recorded myself reading Chapter 14 of Northanger Abbey.
As I began my reading of the chapter, I was immediately met with frustration, simply brought to be by my own voice. I can vary how I sound somewhat, being able to swap between a couple types of voices, though each is obviously still mine. Being able to swap to multiple female voices is something I never tried before, and attempting to do so was an incredible challenge for me. Being able to get at least one feminine voice was trouble enough, but requiring to use a second, different voice was almost the death of me, though I eventually decided to differentiate the two voices by how much strain I put in them, seeing at it was the only possible way I could use two different female voices. Henry’s voice was much easier for me to accomplish, seeing that I am a male, so adjusting my pitch to create another male voice isn’t exceedingly difficult for me. Another hurdle I had to overcome during my recording session was not noise from roommates, or some blaring music from an impromptu party down the hall from me. It was my own tongue, essentially betraying me whenever possible. Whenever I tried to state the words on the page so they would be recorded, more often than not, I horribly mispronounced even the most basic of words, said words that did not exist in that sentence, or completely omitted certain words in the sentence. To overcome this failure caused by myself and only myself, I divided my recordings into parts, speaking a paragraph at a time, deleting the small recording if it contained an error, or adding it to the “large” recording if I felt it went without trouble.
During my private readings of the book, I often felt “distracted,” for lack of a better word. Not because the book was boring to me, not because of a party happening in the room next to mine, nor was it caused by me feeling like I had “better” things to do at the moment. I was, in what could be considered irony, distracted from such an important part of my workload, because of the rest of my workload. Throughout my private reading, I often skipped over parts of the book by simply skimming the pages at some points, all because of the thoughts of “If I don’t hurry up with this reading, I won’t have enough time to write my essay due on Monday, or any of the others I must complete this week!” This mental panic I forced upon myself to “encourage” myself to hurry up and finish important readings more quickly so I can work on the essays they are a part of unsurprisingly came back to haunt me with this new project. Due to my rush and panic combining, I never truly took the time to develop the characters in the book by fleshing them out in my mind, the only thing I actually bothered to do was assign them a specific voice in my mind, which sometimes changed, based purely on their actions. Or rather, a loose example of a “specific” voice for a character, due to the rush. Examples I have are my assumptions such as Catherine having a light, soft voice tinged with confusion, the idea of which came to me as I read the novel and noticed that Catherine wasn’t exactly the brightest person around. For Henry Tilney, my mind imagined a voice similar to my own, if somewhat deeper. This is because as I read, during the few parts when I was not rushing myself through the novel, I enjoyed taking random guesses at how conversations would unfold. Though drastically different in words, I noticed the ideas behind Henry’s manner of speaking, compared to that of my own, were surprisingly similar. The last character I needed to voice in Chapter 14 was Henry’s sister, Eleanor Tilney. For her, I thought of her voice as firm, assertive, and one that had a slight hint of sarcasm to it when needed. The later part came to be from scenarios such as the beginning of Chapter 14, where she was all too willing to take a few jabs at Henry’s opinions.
In terms of hearing somebody else’s audio recording, I wish I had found the time needed to listen to an “official” recording, such as that of Elizabeth Klett’s and seeing how her interpretation of the characters clashed, matched, or had nothing to do with how I presented them. I was however, able to listen to the audio recordings of the chapters done by other students in the class, and found the differences quite interesting to both think of and listen to, but some things could have been done better. For example, in the audio recording of Chapter 17 by Tyler Andrews, I was interested in the tame but noticeable attitude set by the narration, but at the same time, I was quite disappointed in the recording. Instead of trying to establish the voices he heard the characters speak in within his own mind, the narrators voice persisted for even the characters. This essentially kills the experience to me, as it makes the recording sound like one just reading lines off a piece of paper for the characters, instead of trying to make one actually feel what the characters felt.
In conclusion, I had a rather fun, new, and unique experience throughout Northanger Abbey. It taught me to read without the modern comfort I was used to in so many novels, and the strange experience of creating an audio recording and injecting my own ideas for the characters voices into it instead of remaining in a single tone. Be it the voices I heard in my head during my rush to finish reading the novel, or the admittedly somewhat shameful voices I created myself for the audio recording, I most likely won’t forget them for quite some time. As of now, I can only hope the rest of the semester in this class continues to provide such a unique experience to the novels I read.