Joe Barrett’s performance in A Prayer for Owen Meaney is really astonishing all the way through, but there’s a 2 minute clip that I have bookmarked, where he performs the narrator John, the main character Owen Meaney, a male voice teacher, and a female voice student, all in succession. I am mostly blind, so rely on voice tone a lot, it’s really hard for male narrators to perform convincing female voices and for female narrators to perform convincing male voices, but almost impossible while singing. Somehow, even though it’s all clearly Joe Barrett, he is able to imitate a female voice type so accurately. Because the book is written as the narrator’s memories, it gives the scene the feeling that we are hearing the memory through the lens of the narrator’s brain, incredibly clear, but still biased by his perspective.
Vast_Cardiologist682 t1_j832r2d wrote
Reply to Favorite audiobook moment by osumarcos
Joe Barrett’s performance in A Prayer for Owen Meaney is really astonishing all the way through, but there’s a 2 minute clip that I have bookmarked, where he performs the narrator John, the main character Owen Meaney, a male voice teacher, and a female voice student, all in succession. I am mostly blind, so rely on voice tone a lot, it’s really hard for male narrators to perform convincing female voices and for female narrators to perform convincing male voices, but almost impossible while singing. Somehow, even though it’s all clearly Joe Barrett, he is able to imitate a female voice type so accurately. Because the book is written as the narrator’s memories, it gives the scene the feeling that we are hearing the memory through the lens of the narrator’s brain, incredibly clear, but still biased by his perspective.