The Sword and Laser discussion

Hi everyone!

Before the discussion for Uprooted officially starts I feel obliged to give a short "warning" regarding the audio book version of "Uprooted":

Please listen to a sample of the audio book before you buy it!

I am saying that because the narrator has a very thick accent and people seem to either love it as "authentic" or hate it as "distracting"!

And even though I am slightly annoyed by the accent I am not saying you shouldn't buy the audio book. Just make sure you have no problems with it before you do...

Sorry for bursting in this early...

The narrator is a little choppy in the begining, but evens thigs out fast enough it does not become a distraction.

I thought the narrator was pretty terrible in the beginning. But now I'm halfway through the audiobook and I'm more or less used to it. I don't think it's the narrator's accent that is the problem though. I think it's easy to put the problem on the accent because that is the thing that is strange sounding to many who aren't familiar with a Polish accent, myself included. But it's the narrators choppy, often wooden performance that put me off. It sounds like she is reading text rather than just telling a story she is familiar with because it is her own story. It reminded me of when your fourth grade teacher makes you read a passage out loud in class and there are new vocabulary words you're not really familiar with. There was a slowness full of weird pauses that seemed to indicate she was stumbling over words or turning the page. I think it's just an odd choice the narrator made. I would have preferred Agnieska to retain the accent, but not sound like she had such trouble with English. There are also several points in the audiobook where it is clear the narrator took a break and came back and took a while to fully get into the accent again. I almost thought the narrator had changed until I slowly heard her slip back into the accent more fully.

Yeah, it may be the strange rythm with the random pauses and not the accent itself.

I am wondering if this is contributing to my impression that Agnieska is a bit slow...

But I have to admit I love how the narrator pronounces the names.

I'm glad I didn't listen to a preview. I think I might have not purchased.

But you quickly get used to the accent and it really adds something to the story telling. It's sort of a constant reminder that the POV character is a peasant girl, which is a handy reminder to have imo. :)

I was "forced" into the audiobook by my library. (Meaning that the wait lists for a physical or ebook copy were really long.) I wouldn't have gone with this narrator if I was making the pick, but the accent went well with place and personal names. Overall I thought it was an acceptable choice. But if I'd just listened to a preview, I might have skipped it.

I started the audiobook yesterday and I'm enjoying both the story and narrator, but maybe I just like listening to different accents in general. :)

I've been thinking about the accent/vocal performance a lot. I remember the accent itself didn't bother me. After studying Russian in college (which yes, isn't Polish, but still a Slavic language) I am familiar enough with the sounds that I found the narrator to be almost a little nostalgic. I do remember, however, being initially turned off my the choppy cantor of the speech. Someone posted somewhere that it seemed like the character was struggling with English, and I can definitely see what they meant by that. But, by the end of the book, it really did seem to fit the character and it no longer bothered me. I listen to most audiobook on a faster speed so that helped me hasten the flow between pauses. Doing so very occasionally made the narration sound extra odd, but not often enough to make me slow down.

I love the narrators accent, and I really like her rhythm, my native language is Spanish and it took me a while to figure that it was some kind of Slavic accent (the names helped), so, for a little while, I kept putting the protagonist all over the world, including Africa at some point, I much rather prefer this than generic accent #45, and it makes the book in my mind much more exotic.

Myles wrote: "Someone posted somewhere that it seemed like the character was struggling with English, and I can definitely see what they meant by that"

Yes, I think this rythm coming from the "translation" into English is what I do not like as much. I mean, the audio-book narrator sounds very meticulous when carefully translating the Story word by word. But based on certain story elements I do not necessarily see Agnieszka as a very meticulous person - I see her more as ‎Hailee Steinfeld or Maisy Williams type character who wouldn't be quite as "academic" when telling the story...