Abridgement

30 Mar 2010

This was going to be a really long blog today. And then I saw the word. So...

I never really understood the point of the abridgment of books. Surely a book needs all its contents or the author wouldn't have put it there? Eventually, after reading (and writing) a lot more, I realised that authors frequently have no idea what they're putting in their books, and that a little trimming couldn't hurt with some of them.

But I didn't get why talking books were always edited to about 4 hours and mercilessly abridged until they could be shoe-horned into it.

That was before I tried recording myself reading a book. I read Terry Pratchett's Nation onto CD for my Dad, since he can't read very well anymore. It was exhausting. There's almost 10 hours of reading on disc, but that doesn't include all the mistakes and false starts and practicing tricky bits and choosing the best voices. So I think I get it now.

It would be nice if we could abridge other things. Meetings, bad films, periods of Conservative rule... the only problem is, who's the editor? Do we trust them? What if they cut out the best bits? They could doom us to a life of continually cooking polenta and watching The Antiques Roadshow. If you tried to sue them they'd just edit out the bit where you won the case. You could try and self edit, but I hear that taking a knife to your own life frequently ends badly. Though I think life generally ends badly anyway, so maybe the problem is that it middles badly.

I think I've lost it now. Abridge me! Abridge me!