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For fiction, I can't see the point. I read for pleasure, and I'm not in a hurry. I'd rather read the book the way the author intended.
But I do sometimes long for an abridged version when I'm reading a long, detailed non-fiction book, like a biography. I find myself thinking, "You know, I really don't need to know what this person did on every day of their life."
No, it always feels like I'm missing something. Plus this is not what the author intended, unless of course the author provides the abridged version himself. The only abridged version that I would recommend is Richardson's Clarissa, because the orignal is just rediculously long.
I have a few abridged books in my library, but they are mostly nonfiction like Alexis de Tocquesville's "Democracy In America" and Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". I think that the only abridged novel I've ever read was "Clarissa" by Samuel Richardson...and the short version was still much longer than it needed to be!
No, never. I don't even encourage my young students to choose them.
Only when I cannot find the unabridged version.
No,I'd never read the abridged version,even at the cost of not reading the book at all,actually.As Virgil pointed out,I'd always feel as if I was missing out on something.
Only if it is non-fiction or a book you don't read from beginning to the end in a row; e.g. I own a book with a selection of Montaigne's Essais and I would also buy poetry selections. I don't need to read every poem by R.M. Rilke - besides his masterpieces there are also some trashy poems I can easily do without.
I got an abridged version of a classic out of the library once by mistake and the first page was disappointing. The abridged version doesn't make much sense to me; honestly, if a part of a book starts to bore me, I'll go into skim mode. However, I like making the decision myself which sections of the text are worth reading and which are better to skim.
I refuse to read abridgments unless an unabridged doesn't exist in English translation. Reading a 600 page Count of Monte Cristo doesn't count as reading. I guess that is why the book is so popular; most people don't actually read it, and even those that do only read some editor's opinion of it.
As for the poster who uses audiobooks, I cannot even understand how you can get even close to the same experience with an audio copy as you can with the text.
I used to read abriged versions when I was begining to learn English - obviously "elementary" level is not enough to read an unabriged novel. But that never felt right, I wasn't able to enjoy it - first, the style was almost idiotic, second, I kept thinking after each sentence how can it sound in real and what parts were omitted. So I chose only those stories I knew from the translation and read it only as "study material', not as "literature". And as soon as I was at "pre-intermediate" level, I started to read unabriged novels, even though I had to each book 2 - 3 times to get what it is about. And I think it helped me more useful for learning English than abriged versions.
As for Spark Notes, I think they can be useful, but it depends how you use it. If you read it instead of the book, then I think it's very stupid thing to do. But if you do it to confront your opinions about the book with the opinion of someone else, it can be useful, it can point out some things you never thought of, or show it from different perspective. In most cases I disagree with what's written there, but occasionally I find also something ineresting.
If you're starving hungry, would you only eat crumbs, when you can have the whole meal??
If you're dying of thirst, would you only take a sip, if you can have the whole bottle??
unabridged. Don quixote is one of the best books i've ever read and Ilm constantly recommending it to anyone and everyone. I read the abridged version when i was younger and still enjoyed it but with the whole book the depth of the story expands to quite a different level
'Ever since I came down from the heavens and ever since I looked down from the top of them at the Earth and saw it was so small, that great urge I had to be a governor has been cooling off a bit- what's so marvellous about ruling over a mustard seed, and what's so lordly or important about governing half a dozen men the size of hazelnuts? because it seemed to me there weren't any more than that on the whole Earth. If your lordship could see your way to giving me a little bit of heaven, even if only a couple of miles or so of it, i'd be happier with that than with the biggest island in the world.'
sancho panza (from don quixote)
I know this is slightly off-topic, but I completely agree on this point. I tried listening to audio books when I was driving, since I used to have a very long commute to work, but I zone out and miss entire sections of the book. It's very hard to actively listen. Otherwise, the voice just ends up like a hum, going in one ear and out the other.Quote:
As for the poster who uses audiobooks, I cannot even understand how you can get even close to the same experience with an audio copy as you can with the text.
Abridged ? Pistols at Dawn,mate.
Oh, I would never intentionally read an abridged version.
I read one a long time ago. I absolutely cannot remember what it was anymore, but I bought the abridged version without realizing it. Then, halfway through the story I realized that I bought the wrong version. That bothered me a lot because I felt that I may have missed out on something. So I try to make sure that I only buy the unabridged versions of novels.