Some subliminal airing of my own

Rebecca Starford

Deputy Editor of ABR

During October, Radio National broadcast Elisabeth Holdsworth’s reading of ‘An die Nachgeborenen: For Those Who Come After’. This essay, which won the inaugural Calibre Prize, describes Elisabeth’s return in 2005 to Middelburg in the Netherlands, and her family’s vicissitudes during World War II. In its printed form (ABR, February 2007), the essay had generated a uniformly laudatory response from readers. Elisabeth’s measured and understated reading of her extraordinary history was poignant in ways that are difficult to articulate – it was such a moving experience to listen to this story and all its nuances, the shapes and sounds of language; all in a kind of melancholic bliss.

Unsurprisingly, in the days that followed the Radio National broadcasts, dozens of listeners telephoned, faxed and e-mailed ABR to convey their admiration for the reading, the memories it evoked, their own connection to the Netherlands, and similar childhood experiences during the war.

The weekend after the broadcast, I spent a weekend with friends in a dune-nestled beach house in Rye, on the Mornington Peninsula. In preparation for the weekend, we organised the usual provisions: food, alcohol, DVDs and of course ‘road-trip entertainment’: an assortment of music from our various collections. But when I went to my CD collection I couldn’t find anything that seemed right. I was still affected by a kind of displaced and unwarranted nostalgia after listening to Elisabeth’s reading; I was sighing a lot. In the end I went to my local library and borrowed a talking book – or play, to be precise: The Importance of Being Earnest. My friends are literary-minded – what could be better than careering down the Nepean Highway, chortling away at Oscar Wilde’s wit?

Sadly, my friends weren’t taken with Martin Clunes’s rendition of Algernon, nor with Judi Dench and her regal enunciations as Lady Bracknell. In fact, the whole play was rather lost on my captive Corolla audience.
‘What’s wrong with a talking book?’ I demanded when the CD was peremptorily changed. The car went quiet; all eyes turned slowly on me with a look of exasperated pity that seemed to say, ‘Okay, we know you work at ABR but do we really have to listen to a talking book?’

Since then, I have developed something of a complex, possibly paranoid, about talking books. Is there anything wrong with liking them as much as I do? Am I really, as friends increasingly observe, an older person trapped in a younger person’s body? Or is this an outmoded stereotype – does it have nothing to do with age at all? Am I simply a younger person trapped in the body of someone who likes talking books, and therefore a social outcast?

My penchant for audio books is, of course, my choice. I don’t rely on them, or other forms of audio media, to provide my dose of current affairs, sport and literary recreation. Seventeen per cent of Australians do, however.

According to RPH Australia, a network of Australian radio stations that represents people who, for whatever reason, are unable to access print material, more than three million Australians have a print disability – whether they are blind, visually impaired or illiterate.

When ABC Commercial recently cut its audio sections (ABC Audio), many print handicapped lost access to a key source of information and entertainment. In a public statement, ABC Commercial cited financial losses as the main reason for the move. According to the Director of ABC Commercial, ‘losses incurred from such enterprises directly impact on the ABC’s ability to produce programs for ABC radio, television and online’.

Fortunately, in September, ABC Commercial announced a new partnership with Vision Australia to ensure the continued supply of audio books to the Australia market. The agreement provides Vision Australia with direct access to ABC’s extensive back catalogue of audio titles and will enable Vision Australia to produce up to sixty audio book titles per year. This is good news. Let’s hope that this particular facet of the publishing industry continues to flourish and is not undermined by ‘losses incurred’ and other bureaucratic machinations.

In the meantime, another beachside weekend is planned and the ‘road-trip entertainment’ play-list must to be formulated. Among the live streams and podcasts, I will attempt some subliminal airing of my own: it may not be the best example of an audio-literary loan (John Birmingham’s He Died with a Felafel in his Hand, all that was available at the local library!), but for the purpose of this blog it is convenient (as blogs so often are), since one of the actors in the recording is Gretel Killen, host of Channel 10’s supremely awful Big Brother. And this allows me to end thus:

O cruel, needless misunderstanding. O stubborn, self willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of their noses. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was over. They had won victory over themselves. They loved Talking Books!