This is a written conversation between two friends: The writer and musician Barbara Froman and I:
In early December of last year, fellow Red Room author, Orna
B. Raz, wrote a blog post entitled, “‘Promises to Keep’ and Reading.”
The title, which refers to a line in one of my favorite
poems, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, immediately
caught my attention. Even though I was in the midst of holiday preparations, I
took the time to read it because of the title, and the fact that Orna writes
beautifully about every subject she chooses. Very quickly, I was glad I had. I
had been trying to think of new ideas for Music and Prose, and now here was
one, wrapped like a gift, in Orna’s lovely post:
“... listening to audio books has become my favorite pastime
while driving. I feel they add life to the written text, and ignite the
imagination.”
What better way to express the belief central to every Music
and Prose post? That language is an art of meaning and sound?
I was so inspired and excited, I contacted Orna to ask if
she would be willing to engage in a series of conversations with me for Music
and Prose about the sound of language, and to my delight, she said, “Yes.”
And so, it my great pleasure to share our discussions with
you….
BF:
There are so many places we could begin, but it occurs to me that it might be
best to start with those experiences that led us to develop an aural
relationship with literature. My first experiences with literature came from
being read to as a child. Because I already had a love of sound, and my parents
were expressive readers, I instantly related to the tones and rhythms of the
text. Was this how it happened for you?
OR:
I believe it all started with the radio, I don’t remember my mother reading a
lot to me when I was little. But I always loved the radio and especially radio
plays. I read that over one million people watched on television the Coronation
of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd in June 1953. It was a year-and-a-half before I was
born. Until the beginning of 1970’s we didn’t have a television set at home and
Israeli television only started broadcasting around 1966.
As children we listened to children's programs. I don’t
remember much of their content, but as a result of some of them my
brother and I, together with a cousin, started our own secret society. In
our games, as in life, we followed my brother’s instructions (he was always
my inspiration, and besides he was much older than us). Most of the children’s
program were in the early afternoon, after school programs.
However, we were also allowed to listen to the best radio drama, at
night. It was the program that everyone listened to, about the
detective Paul Temple. I just Googled it and found
that it was a well know British radio drama which was translated into Hebrew
from English.
BF: Ah,
radio…. You know, there’s a popular Saturday afternoon radio show around these
parts called Those were the
Days, which features
recordings of old broadcasts from the 1930’s and ’40’s.” Of particular interest
to me in that show are the wonderful plays, such as “Sorry, Wrong Number,”
which were introduced to so many on radio. In some ways, I think radio allows
the listener multiple benefits: it provides the enactment dramatic works need
in order to give them life, and it gives the listener/audience a chance to
exercise their imaginations, fill in with images. In a concrete way, it is the
best of both worlds—theatrical and literary—and a superb introduction to
writing. As a bonus, it also allows the listener, who is not distracted by action
on a stage, to really hear the dialogue and words, savor the language itself.
OR: You
are right, radio makes the imagination work harder. For me it is the
perfect medium. I have vivid memories of my father listening to the radio
(especially classical music and news), and my brother,
who is a journalist. He started his career in the Israeli public
radio and has been working for many years in public television.
BF:
Wonderful, and what an impressive and distinguished career he’s had. It’s
interesting that he moved into that medium, and you moved from radio into
print. Yet you point out in your post, how ideal the medium is for drama,
particularly the works of Shakespeare.
OR:
Yes, listening to the records of Shakespeare’s plays helped me understand them
better, and they suddenly came to life, especially when I read along with the
record. Then Shakespeare was no longer an old difficult text, but a funny
or a sad drama.
Later I read with my girls, usually in Hebrew. At the time
we lived in the US, and they learnt to read English very early and read very
fast, thus they had no patience to read together. But they wanted me to read
aloud in Hebrew.
Years later I discovered that audio books were perfect for
long distance driving, I loved listening to them. This method also helped me
tackle some difficult texts that otherwise, I don’t think, I would have had the
patience to read, like Bleak House.
In the last couple of years, I have been listening to
another radio program This American
Life, on PBS, and it is a source of inspiration for me. I listen
to it regularly as I skate in the park and often write down key words and
sentences which I later use. In fact, the last program of This American Life, which just aired, was about radio drama.
Once a week I read aloud with a young friend (she is 10).
She is very smart but doesn't like to read. It is a great fun when we do it
together. (I wrote about it in two posts: "Can Great Literature Save Lives?"
and "Ramona the Reader or What Can We Learn From An 8 Year Old
Girl?")
BF: I
find it interesting that your daughters prefer for you to read to them in
Hebrew. Is there a reason for this beyond their greater familiarity with the
language? I ask because every language has its own unique
characteristics. I remember having to sing an aria in English, when the
original text was in Italian, and hating it. Everything about the pairing felt
wrong to me, as though even the words’ meanings were fighting with the music.
OR: An
important reason why, when we lived in the US, I read to my daughters in
Hebrew was that I couldn't find translated literature in the library or
in used books stores. Almost all the children’s books around were written
originally in English. I looked for the books which I read (and loved) as a
child, and wanted to share them with my girls. Somehow it was very important
for me that they would read them. Since most of the books in Hebrew are
translated from different languages it has always been easy to find great
children books in Hebrew.
I also wrote about that challenge in several posts: "Judging a Town by its Library," "God’s language – translated literature and
subtitled film," and "Balancing between Instruction and Delight—Erich
Kastner."
Here are the links to Barbara Froman's works:
web site http://www.barbarafroman.com
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