Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records Braille and Talking Books Division
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WELCOME TO BOOK TALK

This location presents Arizona Braille and Talking Book Readers
with book summaries and reviews suggested by our readers, staff, and volunteers.
Also provided will be recent library news.

(Writer’s note: Once in a while a great fictional writer comes along who is so totally creative that each novel is a unique experience unto itself. You just don’t get the feeling you are reading the same old thing with a slightly new twist. Joyce Carol Oates happens to be perhaps the best example of such a writer in the 21 st century. Winner of many distinguished literary awards, Joyce Carol Oates takes you into a world of affluence, middle-age crisis, philosophical and spiritual insights, and much more in her novel Middle Age: A Romance. In short, I have never read a novel that surpassed this one in its ability to touch the reader’s soul through magnificent character development.)

Book Review:

MIDDLE AGE: A ROMANCE
RC 54789
By Joyce Carol Oates
464 pages on four cassettes
Narrated by Laura Giannarelli

FROM THE BOOK JACKET

“In Salthill-on-Hudson, a half-hour train ride from Manhattan, everyone is rich, beautiful, and - though they look much younger—middle-aged. But when Adam Berendt, a charismatic, mysterious sculptor, dies suddenly in a brash act of heroism, shock waves rock the town.

But who was Adam Berendt? Was he in fact a hero, or someone more flawed and human? His loss and the rumors that surface of his possible lovers plunge his friends into grief, confusion, and self-reflection. The women who loved Adam find themselves engaging in life-altering romantic adventures. The men who were Adam’s closest friends become utterly transformed in his absence. Adam’s lawyer, Roger Cavanagh, who has broken the law for Adam’s sake, becomes involved with an elusive and perhaps treacherous young woman. Marina Troy exiles herself to fulfill a wish Adam had made for her. Lionel Hoffman sets out, unwisely but with great hope, to recapture his lost youth after a lifetime of soulless financial success, even as his wife, Camille, discovers an unspeakable joy close to home. Augusta Cutler, a hitherto sensuous, unreflective woman, defiantly endeavors to solve the mystery of Adam’s origins, even if it means losing her marriage and family.

Middle Age: A Romance is an intimately drawn, richly sympathetic, yet unsparingly comic portrait of the affluent class at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Incisive, insightful, and never predictable, it’s a uniquely American saga of self-determination and identity from one of our finest writers of contemporary fiction. “

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in short fiction. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys (RC 44100 narrated by Bruce Huntey on four cassettes) and Blonde (RC 50255 narrated by Laura Giannarelli on seven cassettes), which was nominated for the National Book Award. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member since 1978 of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. “ -- taken from the Book Jacket but with the addition of talking book information.

ABOUT THE NARRATOR

Laura Giannarelli grew up with a penchant for drama. She has an extensive background as an actor in the Washington D.C. area and is a summa cum laude graduate of Catholic University of America’s Drama Department. She started narrating for the Library of Congress in 1979 right after graduating from college. In 1990 she was honored with the prestigious “Alexander Scourby Narrator of the Year Award.” Currently she reads for the National Library Service Potomac Talking Book Services in Bethesda, Maryland. To date she has been the voice of some 500 titles and states that her favorite authors for narration include Laura Ingalls Wilder, Joyce Carol Oates, A.S. Byatt and Adriana Trigiani. Besides all of the above, Laura Giannarelli has traveled throughout the country providing narration workshops for volunteer narrators for The National Library Service.

READER CRITIQUE

Most writers develop characters around plots. Character development seems to be an appendage of the storyline and novels soon forgotten emphasize action over the human participants. Once in a great while, an author comes along who does just the opposite. The story seems to be based on human interplay and the psychic development of the participants. These novels are most often the literary main stays of the society they represent. Joyce Carol Oates’ Middle Age: A Romance is a classic example of the above.

Her major character, Adam Berendt goes off to a July 4 th celebration and never comes back. In a courageous attempt to save children involved in a boating accident, he suffers a fatal heart attack and his close friends, both male and female, are left in a psychological state of chaos. Their reaction to this tragedy creates a novel that is both unique and a sociological statement of it’s time.

In short, while the reader who likes a fast paced novel may find Middle Age: A Romance cumbersome, this reader believes it will live on in American Literature as a true classic. Much like Faulkner, Steinbeck, and other American greats, Oates’ unique crafting of characters creates a story that is simply outstanding!!!

NARRATOR REVIEW

To be honest, Laura Giannarelli has not been one of my favorite readers. True, she has always been extremely dramatic in her presentations and this quality has made characters and plots so real that they burst into your life and you just can’t shut off your player. However, on the downside, her dramatic attention to voice character development often caused voice level ‘drop offs’ at the end of sentences. For example, her almost ‘overdone’ voice characterization of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (by Joyce Carol Oates – RC 50255 on seven cassettes) is plagued with huge variances of tonality and even whispers that make the book very difficult to hear.

When I looked up Middle Age: A Romance and found out Laura was the narrator, based on the above, I wasn’t thrilled. Yet I firmly believe narrators often overcome their Achilles’ heel – or should I say Achilles’ tongue (sic) – and surprise you just when you thought you had them all figured out. This is certainly true with Giannarelli’s narration of Middle Age; A Romance.

Laura’s dramatic voice makes this book so real you feel like the characters are walking in your living room!! There are no whispers and no declining tonality at the end of sentences. Her presentation is done with a voice that remains powerful throughout and people with age-affected ears like mine have no problem hearing this book. It all boils down to one very important fact, if you give a narrator a second chance you might just get the listening experience of your life!!!

Library News

As you probably already know, your Arizona State Braille and Talking Book Library has been involved with some dramatics of its own, software dramatics. Long time and very successful software vendor, Data Research Associates, was bought out by another computer company who subsequently informed all their library for the blind and physically handicapped customers that they could not meet anticipated future need, for example, the advancement of a user “On-Line” catalogue. It became immediately apparent that a new software vendor must be found. Since Data Research Associates’ software had been a mainstay of our program for some twenty years, this indeed was a dramatic turn of events!!

After a thorough search for an alternate company, staff decided upon Keystone Library Automation Systems, Inc. Starting in November, this software vendor began a major conversion of our system. This was not only conducted from their offices in Raleigh North Carolina but also on site at our library. They also carried out extensive training of our staff so that we could successfully operate this new system.

Currently we are happy to report that the inevitable “bugs” of a new system are largely on their way to being eradicated. In fact, our new “On-Line” catalogue offers a host of services that were not previously possible. If you are interested in using the above or have other questions about our new automated system, please feel free to contact your Reader Advisement Librarian.

So if you were thinking of drama as an element of exciting plots and well-done narrations, think again. For dramatics can also create an automated system that meets your futuristic demands right now!!!

(Comments and questions regarding “BookTalk” should be
directed to Reader Advisement Librarian Henry Hayden at hhayden@lib.az.us)

 

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Updated:  10/6/2006

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