Rec. #184: The Angel's Game, as read by Dan Stevens

A note on audiobooks: Up to now, all the book recommendations I have made on this blog have been specifically for print books. I make no promises as to the relative success of any audio versions. This is because, in my opinion, books that you read with your eyes and books that you read with your ears are very different creatures.

I'm picky about both, but in entirely different ways. For audiobooks, the reader/voice talent/narrator can be as important as the author. For example, does the reader seem to be constantly speaking on a sigh? Out. If the reader is male, does he do female voices by whispering? Out. Does the reader, at any time, make mouth noises? Definitely out, possibly with throwing involved.

What: The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, might actually be kind of annoying to read in printed form. The main character is one of those frustratingly dense individuals who do seem to keep cropping up in fiction (especially fiction involving melodramatic conspiracies). And, although the story is a first-person narrative, the book is almost entirely silent regarding the hero's motivation for anything he does. The plot as a whole does not seem to follow logic of any sort, not even its own.

And yet. And yet we have memorable characters (including Isabella, who isn't present nearly enough), thick melodrama, and some truly delicious lines. All of this is shown to its best advantage in the reading by Dan Stevens, who does not sigh, whisper when voicing a woman, or make unseemly mouth noises. Indeed, his precisely distinct voices save the listener, who might otherwise get a bit muddled about which vaguely menacing character is which. Plus, honestly, as I mentioned in Personalized Wreck List #1, the whole thing is worth it just to hear Stevens lovingly bite off the word "flesh."

Representative quote: "Nothing is fair --- the most one can hope for is for things to be logical."

You might not like it if: You do not have a long commute that lends itself to audiobook-listening.

How to get it: In case I haven't made myself abundantly clear, I am specifically suggesting the audio version of this book, as read by Dan Stevens. Try your library.