{"id":93358,"date":"2016-01-11T17:16:20","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T22:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=93358"},"modified":"2017-08-29T11:24:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T15:24:33","slug":"arcadia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/11\/arcadia\/","title":{"rendered":"Arcadia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

John Gielgud in Chimes at Midnight.<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n

This is weather for inspiration: for films and books and good listening. If you\u2019re in New York, go see the new restoration of Orson Welles\u2019s 1966\u00a0Chimes at Midnight<\/a><\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0(Or Midnite<\/em>, as it says on the Film Forum marquee.) If you\u2019re not, you\u2019ll be able to see the Criterion release soon anywhere you like. The alternate title is\u00a0Falstaff<\/em>: the film is Welles\u2019s compendium of all the Falstaff material to be found in Shakespeare, welded into a cohesive, idiosyncratic unit. Welles, of course, is Falstaff. Jeanne Moreau plays a bawd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As bravura as Welles\u2019s Sir John may be, he\u2019s matched in Chimes<\/em> by another Sir John: Gielgud as Henry IV. Indeed, that stage legend\u2019s performance is so magisterial that\u2014be aware\u2014it may send you down a bit of a Gielgud rabbit hole. (And rabbit hole<\/em> is an especially apt word here: he did once record a version of\u00a0Alice in Wonderland<\/em>.) Gielgud\u2019s eight-decade career made his one of the most famous voices in English, which means plenty of audio. Sir John\u2019s classic Shakespearean recordings are of course legion, and if you\u2019re a Wodehouse fan, be sure to find his \u201cLeave it to Psmith.\u201d But if you crave something more solid, you must\u2014absolutely must\u2014listen to his unabridged\u00a0Brideshead Revisited<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, the Jeremy Irons version is wonderful; it\u2019s one of the classic pieces of audio fiction, in my opinion, and I love a book on tape. The question really comes down to this: Do you want Charles Ryder\u00a0or his father? Not that Gielgud interprets the whole novel as that abstracted patriarch; the reading is as sensitive and varied as you might hope. Even if you\u2019ve read the book a score of times, or you\u2019re ambivalent about it, this recording is worth your time: it is a pleasure. There is a great deal to be said for walking through a dead, gray world with a wonderful voice in your head.<\/p>\n

But obviously, having turned my attention to audiobooks: first, and immediately, you should listen to David Bowie, circa \u201978, narrating\u00a0Peter and the Wolf<\/em><\/a>. Et in Arcadia ego.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is weather for inspiration: for films and books and good listening. If you\u2019re in New York, go see the new restoration of Orson Welles\u2019s 1966\u00a0Chimes at Midnight.\u00a0(Or Midnite, as it says on the Film Forum marquee.) If you\u2019re not, you\u2019ll be able to see the Criterion release soon anywhere you like. The alternate title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[3908,19739,5763,20737,2911,5764,20739,20741,20738,1470,3259,12237,948,9311],"class_list":["post-93358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-audiobooks","tag-books-on-tape","tag-brideshead-revisited","tag-chimes-at-midnight","tag-david-bowie","tag-evelyn-waugh","tag-falstaff","tag-jeremy-irons","tag-john-gielgud","tag-orson-welles","tag-p-g-wodehouse","tag-readers","tag-shakespeare","tag-voices"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Gielgud Reading Brideshead Revisited<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Any fan of audiobooks will enjoy Gielgud\u2019s terrific performance of Evelyn Waugh\u2019s popular novel.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/11\/arcadia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arcadia by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 11, 2016 \u2013 This is weather for inspiration: for films and books and good listening. 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