Season’s Listening

Bah! Humbug!

There are a lot of bells and whistles on the audio cassette versions of children’s books this holiday season.

Someone, for example, felt compelled to enhance William Hurt’s reading of Chris Van Allsburg’s classic-in-the-making, THE POLAR EXPRESS.

Imagine getting this actor to read this book--one of the few stories in recent years, I must confess, that made me cry--and then overwhelming his voice with other sounds.

The train chuffs and whistles as it heads for the North Pole, and lush instrumental arrangements burst constantly upon the ear.

But I kept wishing for nothing more than Hurt’s voice and, at certain moments in the story, the shaking of a single sleigh bell.

Still, Hurt is so perfect for “The Polar Express” that he very nearly saves the recording--which is a good thing, since his association with the book and cassette package (Houghton Mifflin: $24.95 in stores) will probably attract a whole new audience for the book.

The producers of “The Polar Express” tape should listen to Meryl Streep’s reading of Beatrix Potter’s THE TALE OF MR. JEREMY FISHER (Rabbit Ears Books), which will show up soon in stores along with a lavishly illustrated book at $19.95 for the set.

There is music on this tape, too, but it is not so obtrusive. And that allows Streep to impart her magic to Mr. Jeremy’s quest for minnows.

Wrapping sound effects and musical arrangements around the voices of Oscar winners like Hurt and Streep is the trend in the children’s audio-book market.

But give me any day the unembellished vocal chords of someone like Cindy Hardin.

The pure, spring-fed voice of this 42-year-old part-time actress and full-time Mom from Portsmouth, R.I., is the best argument I know of for simply putting great books in the hands of great readers and getting out of the way.

Hers is a trained voice, but it is also something more basic: It is the voice of a mother reading to her children.

Hardin does a number of unabridged readings of children’s classics, but the one I like most is ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. She even includes Lewis Carroll’s poem at the start of the book, the last lines of which put you in the perfect mood for the story:

Alice! A childish story take,

And, with a gentle hand,

Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined

In Memory’s mystic band,

Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers

Pluck’d in a far-off land.

You can purchase Hardin’s reading of “Alice” for $26 from JimCin Recordings or you can rent it from Books on Tape for $14.50 a month.

Another reader of children’s classics in the unadorned Hardin style is Jean DeBarbieris.

Her version of BLACK BEAUTY for Books in Motion is so good it’s worth owning at $23.95. You can also rent it for $7.50 a month.

Like Hardin, DeBarbieris simply picks up this grand story by Anna Sewell and starts turning the pages as though a clutch of children were gathered at her feet.

The master of this style is Flo Gibson, who is magnificent in reading the greatest pastoral escapist tale ever written, Kenneth Grahame’s THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.

There are a lot of good readings of this classic around--one by Scottish actor David McCallum comes to mind--but, alas, they are usually heavily abridged.

Better to hear every line of the adventures of Toad and Rat and Mole in Gibson’s rich, raspy voice. Her reading for Audio Book Contractors rents for $9 a month or you can own it for $26.95. She does several other children’s classics as well, all of them excellent.

Finally, for all children from 1 to 92, I recommend three recordings of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens.

One is an unabridged reading by American actor Frank Muller, who is probably the best non-English reader of Dickens doing audio books today. There’s never been a better Scrooge on tape.

Muller’s two-cassette effort for Recorded Books rents for $7.50 a month and sells for $16.50.

I also liked British actor Patrick Horgan’s reading of “A Christmas Carol” for Listening Library. You cannot rent it, but it is worth the purchase price of $15.95 for the two cassettes just to hear Horgan pronounce Scrooge’s name.

And if you prefer dramatizations of classics, there is a very good one of “A Christmas Carol” on a single cassette, offered by Caedmon for $9.95. It passes my test for dramatizations, which is that much of the author’s prose be preserved in the dramatic framework.

The book’s narrator (Dickens) is played by Paul Scofield, and Sir Ralph Richardson appears as Scrooge. This recording will raise your hackles when Marley’s ghost suddenly appears dragging its chains.

And, of course, Tiny Tim has the last word: “God bless us every one!”

In THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Sherlock Holmes has just launched into one of his famous conjectures when his client interrupts.

“We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork,” complains Dr. Mortimer.

One can imagine the great detective looking down his nose at this lesser mortal as he rejoins:

“Rather into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination.”

Better than anything else, that description of Holmes’ technique explains the enduring popularity of the 56 adventures that were recorded a century ago by his friend Dr. John H. Watson and conveyed to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for publication, mostly in London’s Strand Magazine.

We won’t debate here whether Holmes and Watson were real or simply the creations of Doyle. It’s like arguing over whether there is a Santa Claus. Believers abound.

In a delightful book published in 1962, “Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street,” William S. Baring-Gould wrote that Holmes died on Jan. 6, 1957, at the age of 103, at Sussex Downs, where he had lived since 1903, tending his bees.

On that day in January, reported Baring-Gould: “It had grown much colder, and very dark. The old man on the bench drew his caped overcoat still closer about him. The gray eyes closed. The white-maned head fell forward on his breast.

“For the last time the thin lips spoke.

“ ‘Irene,’ the old man said. ‘Irene.’

“Anderson of the Sussex Constabulary found him there in the morning.”

As all Holmes fans know, the lady who was on Sherlock’s mind at the end was his long-lost love, Irene Adler, she of “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

Even if the Holmes adventures never interested you, there is a chance to correct that character flaw thanks to the audio book industry.

You should listen, for example, to British actor Robert Hardy read THE FINAL PROBLEM, in which Holmes apparently perishes at the hands of the fiendish Prof. Moriarty.

And then listen to Hardy read of Holmes’ reappearance three years later in THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE.

Hardy--who was magnificent as Winston Churchill on “Masterpiece Theater” several years ago--handles the constant interchange between Holmes and Watson without confusion by simply changing his voice ever so slightly: scholarly for Watson, crisp and dismissive for Holmes.

The Audio Partners Inc. offers the Hardy readings in two separate sets of two cassettes at $16.95 each. You’ll have to order both sets to get Holmes’ apparent demise and his triumphant return.

Another excellent, straightforward reading of the Holmes adventures was turned in by Ben Kingsley, who won an Oscar for his performance in the 1982 movie “Gandhi.” Among the eight stories Kingsley chose to read are “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,” “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Red Headed League.”

Dove Inc. sells these as one set of four cassettes for $24.95, and one can only hope that Dove will persuade Kingsley to do more.

Just about every audio book supplier, it seems, has taken a crack at “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” the longest of the Holmes adventures (six hours on tape). I sampled a batch of “Hound” readings and never found a dud. But two favorites did emerge, one by Walter Covell and one by Frank Muller.

These two readers have cult followings in the audio book field, so the choice is simply one of personal taste. Covell’s reading of “Hound” for Books on Tape rents for $14.50 a month. Muller’s for Recorded Books rents for $10.50.

For me, the special discovery in sampling the Holmes stories on audio tape was a series of dramatizations done in the 1950s for BBC Radio, with Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Watson.

Those of us accustomed to Basil Rathbone’s movie portrayals of Holmes as an arrogant, well-nigh insufferable genius will be pleasantly surprised by what Gielgud does with the character. Gielgud is a kinder, gentler, Holmes, if you will. Very charming.

The BBC radio dramatizations of 12 Holmes adventures, including “The Speckled Band,” “The Final Problem” and “A Scandal in Bohemia,” are available as a set (A Baker’s Street Dozen) from The Mind’s Eye. They sell for $35 and come in a wooden box with Holmes’ profile branded on the outside.

“You are the one fixed point in a changing age,” Holmes once said to Watson.

As all of these audio versions attest, the same could be said for Sherlock Holmes.

Where to Order Tapes

Audio Book Contractors; (202) 363-3429; Box 40115; Washington, D.C. 20016.

Audio Partners Inc.; (800) 231-4261; 133 High St., Auburn, Calif. 95603.

Books on Tape; (800) 626-3333; P.O. Box 7900, Newport Beach, Calif. 92658.

Books in Motion; (509) 922-1646; East 9212 Montgomery, Suite 504, Spokane, Wash. 99206.

Caedmon; (800) 242-7737; c/o Harper & Row, 10 E. 53rd St., N.Y., N.Y. 10022.

Dove Inc.; (800) 345-9945; 12711 Ventura Blvd., Suite 250, Studio City, Calif. 91604.

JimCin Recordings; (401) 847-7287; P.O. Box 536, Portsmouth, R.I. 02871.

Listening Library; (800) 243-4504; 1 Park Ave., Old Greenwich, Conn. 06870.

The Mind’s Eye; (800) 227-2020; Box 6727, San Francisco, Calif. 94101

Recorded Books; (800) 638-1304; P.O. Box 79, Charlotte Hall, Md. 20622.