A comment on Ruth's reading

dejanristic1983 · Post by **dejanristic1983** » November 28th, 2012, 3:26 pm

Hi Ruth! I have finished reading the book called The woman in white by Wilkie Collins. I have also observed that you read plenty of chapters of the book. I have a feeling that if I met you now somewhere that I would be able to recognize your voice and I would certainly utter your name. You simply acted while reading your portions of the book. I am sure that you enjoy reading. You were born to be an actress. Do you think so?

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » November 28th, 2012, 3:36 pm

Hahaha! Maybe I missed my calling in life, Dejan. But I can tell you that I am petrified by stage-fright when I am singing, and would never ever be able to learn my lines in a play, so I suspect I would not have been very successful at all.

Ruth

johnell · Post by **johnell** » March 4th, 2013, 6:15 pm

Can I tag onto this thread? Just wanted to say I love your reading and accent, Ruth, and wish you'd do a BUNCH of solos. Never can get enough of it.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » March 5th, 2013, 1:10 am

Why, thank you! That's a lovely start to the day.

42 solos so far, and another ready to catalogue, so it should keep you going for a while

.

Ruth

dejanristic1983 · Post by **dejanristic1983** » March 5th, 2013, 3:35 am

Yes, Johnell, you're right. Hey ruth, I see from comments that most of librivoxers share my thoughts in relation to your readings. I have been reading your version of Wuthering heights. a hundred persons in you as a single being! You transform into all the figures in the book. How could you manage to do so? Do you think that you can answer this question?

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » March 5th, 2013, 10:15 am

Hehe, hard to describe, Dejan. I just know how I want them to sound, and I try to make them sound like that. I don't think there is much conscious thought behind it.

Ruth

dejanristic1983 · Post by **dejanristic1983** » March 5th, 2013, 12:07 pm

OK. It is very difficult to describe as you yourself say. We are very often involved in some actions that we perform unconsciously. For instance, when I play my accordion, I think that my brain is totally offline for I do not think about the keys which are to be pressed. The only thing I do is playing. but, dear Ruth, how could you manage to stand in Josephs shoes and read what was in his soul and mind and how could you find a way of adjusting your voice to the ones that the figures possessed? I know that I am boring, but what I cannot understand I cannot understand.

Post by **ToddHW** » March 5th, 2013, 1:40 pm

What you have just said is one of the greatest pleasures I have found here at Librivox. To go from being a mere passive reader of books to an active participant in the author's world. To at least try to do what Ruth succeeds to well at - to put ourselves into a reading and really understand what the author's characters had in mind, what issues they are dealing with, what emotions they are feeling. And all without stage fright!

After 18 months I am still tickled pink to have found this organization and hobby!!

Thanks, Todd

dejanristic1983 · Post by **dejanristic1983** » March 5th, 2013, 2:55 pm

thank you Todd for letting me know that my comment had its sense as far as ruth's reading of the book is concerned. Thank you also for saying that the comment was one of the greatest pleasures. If you want to enter into me, my blindness, my soul and mind, visit the topic My soul in everybody's hands and there you can find my poem called 'the road not taken'. although my comment is not a book published recently and although I am not a famous author of a masterpiece I am always glad to hear that what I write is accepted by others.
this is only a comment and you find yourself in it.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » March 6th, 2013, 2:05 am

Yes, this is it. If I have put myself into the story, I am inside the characters... or the characters are inside me. Now, I just have to find a way to let them out. As to the physical means of allowing this to happen, well, that means practising and listening. Listening to how they sound inside my head, and then listening to hear if the way I have voiced them corresponds with this. All sorts of things contribute to it - the pitch of the voice, the tone, the pace, the accent, the inflection. By varying all these, different kinds of voices are produced.

Having said that, a lot of listeners prefer the narrator NOT to impose her own interpretation on the characters. They would far rather do the interpretation themselves, and just be presented with a straight reading. I can't do that even when I try. So, in the end, you can only do what works for you.

Ruth

dejanristic1983 · September 25th, 2014, 2:22 am

Dear and highly respected Ruth,

Let me tell you something. It was the other day that my mother and I were sitting at the dining table drinking coffee. I accidentally mentioned you. Then she said that she wishd to hear you reading. I consented to it. Then I found your solo project of 'Wuthering heights'. She listened to it for a longer time and said that you had been born to be an actress. Let me also tell you that she is not an English speaking person. She also observed that your words were convincing, that they simply pierced through the mind and the heart. They had to be listened to, no matter whether a listener wanted to pay attention to them.

It was impossible for me to be indifferent to what she said. It is very interesting to hear such a statement being expressed by a person listening to a language they neither understand nor speak.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » September 25th, 2014, 2:41 am

I find that very moving, Dejan

. Please thank your mother for taking the time to listen. It will spur me on to greater things, I hope.

Ruth

MaryinArkansas · Post by **MaryinArkansas** » September 26th, 2014, 6:47 pm

It's wonderful to read all these well deserved comments about Ruth. Her readings are a pleasure to listen to, and an inspiration to listeners, readers and others who've had the good fortune to discover LibriVox. Of course reading hardly begins to cover all that she does! A big Thank You to Ruth, and others who make LibriVox such a pleasure.

SonOfTheExiles · September 26th, 2014, 10:53 pm

The first time I listened to one of Ruth's recordings, I was struck by a sense of ... well, recognition or deja vu or whatever the correct term is. It took me a couple of days to figure out why.

Making allowance for the differences in accent, I'd swear there's something of a young Judi Dench in Ruth's delivery.

Regards,
Son of the Exiles

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » September 27th, 2014, 1:46 am

Well, thank you all. I am very flattered and a bit embarrassed. But I DO like the "young Judi Dench" bit - particularly the "young"

. I am great fan of hers.

Ruth