Narrator of 133-hour audiobook proclaims boom in 'evolving art'

The increasing popularity of audiobooks has raised recorded narration to the level of a new art form, according to the man whose 133-hour version of an epic autobiographical novel has sealed his status as one of its foremost practitioners.

The Italian-American actor Edoardo Ballerini has recorded more than 250 titles in an audiobook boom that has seen sales double in five years. Like many in the audiobook world, he believes this commercial success has coincided with a creative flourishing.

He says the potential of book narration became apparent after his marathon recording of the English language version of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s acclaimed six-part book series, My Struggle.

“Narrating these books was not only personally extraordinary, but at the vanguard of the evolving art of narration,” he told the Guardian.

The completion of book six this year, for the New York-based Recorded Books, marks the end of a project that has taken five years to finish. The six volumes clock in at more than 133 hours, one of the the longest commercial recordings by a single narrator and almost twice as long as unabridged recordings of the Bible.

Ballerini says recording My Struggle was the most difficult job in a 23-year acting career that has included roles in The Sopranos and the film Dinner Rush.

Feedback from listeners highlighted how audiobooks, and the way they are consumed on smartphones, provide an intimate new way to reach audiences, he says. “The relation between narrator and listener has become much more personal. You’re in their home, lying in bed with them, in their cars, in the gym, or wherever it. It’s very one-on-one, there’s no sound or visual effects, it is just a voice in their heads.”

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He adds: “With the Karl Ove recordings people have written me in very personal ways about their experience of listening, which I’ve not gotten from any other project.”

An artist told Ballerini she heard his voice in her paintings after listening to him reading Knausgaard as she worked. Another fan sent him pottery she said Ballerini’s recording had helped her to create. A couple who were stranded by snow for weeks said the My Struggle recordings helped them survive the winter.

Some take issue with Ballerini’s description of it as a new art form. The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) has run a a talking books service for more than 80 years.

Daryl Chapman, the studios manager at the RNIB, says: “I wouldn’t say narration is a new art form, rather one that’s been evolving over time.”

Oral storytelling dates back to the earliest days of human language. “Cultures often venerated professional story tellers even though they weren’t generating new stories so much as re-telling the old ones,” says Joseph Devlin, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London.

Devlin’s research found listening to stories increased people’s emotional engagement more than watching video.

“I agree with Ballerini that there is an intimacy in the audio format. As a listener you engage more by virtue of co-creating the content with the narrator.”

Paul Stokes, the founder of the blog Audiobook Reviewer, says: “In less than 10 years, the world of audiobooks has exploded. Using smartphones enables listeners, authors, and narrators to connect on many different levels.”

He cites the example of Soundbooth Theatre, which runs live narrations based on YouTube requests, allowing audiences to have a say on how characters are read.

Knausgaard approved the casting of Ballerini to read his books, but the two men have never met. “I was afraid meeting the man would shatter some things, and I’ve not even listened to him speak,” Ballerini says.

But now that the project is complete, he is keen to meet someone he regards as “the author I was born to narrate”. Ballerini treasures a signed copy of book three of the series in which Knausgaard describes him as “my American voice”.

Ballerini says he sometimes found it difficult to get out of character, when channelling Knausgaard. “I felt like it had gotten under my skin so deeply. It was like he was opening a window for me to see my own life. Maybe that’s the case with a lot of people, which is why the books are so compelling.”

He says the experience of reading the 3,600 pages aloud was like “a big therapy session”, and admits to dreaming about Knausgaard and incidents in the books.

Sarah Shrubb, an audio publisher at Little, Brown Book Group, says narrators often break down in tears reading aloud in the studio, especially when authors are reading their own work.

“It’s incredibly difficult and you don’t have the feedback of an audience. It’s just you and the microphone creating these amazing soundscapes in your head. You have to play all of the characters and all their voices, and to be able to do them well is a real art form.”

Shrubb says drama schools are beginning to take notice. “It is becoming an art form that is being taught in colleges. It is not just something actors do between jobs, it’s a career.”

Ballerini acknowledges that his view of the status of audiobooks is an unusual one. “To describe an audiobook as being the largest thing of someone’s career is probably a new kind of claim,” he said. “But it is one that I stand by.”