I gave in. First impressions of Wanderlust #richardarmitage

Also, I’m in bed early because I think I caught a chill cleaning off my car this afternoon and I’m avoiding grading.

I’ve listened to three chapters — first is told from the woman’s perspective (Joy), second from the man’s (Griffin), and then one later chapter (eight), where they meet and start describing each other.

Bullet points:

Prose in ch 1 (Joy) is meh. The character is supposed to sound perky, I guess. Chapter 1 is made up of a series of clichés about the American struggle to speak French that you may find funny if you like that kind of thing. I normally do but it’s not all that well executed (yes, “fizzy water” is funny to think about in French).

Grace Grant’s voice: more or less as we anticipated — not especially relatable, feminine, or sexy. She’s a chemist — but she doesn’t sound authoritative, either. Weird choice of voice for a book like this.

Armitage’s voice: about as usual, sort of toward the deeper range but not as deep as we’ve heard it. He does a French accent when narrating French characters, which is still cool although not as cool as it was in Pilgrimage, maybe because there’s so much more of it. If you didn’t like the cheesy French accent in that film this is going to wear thin, fast.Places where he can’t keep the French accent entirely consistent are noticeable.

Prose in ch 2 (Griffin): also kind of clichéd. Off-color conversations with and between French men. Also lots of obscenities. (Not an issue for me, but not clear that the narrative requires them.) And another conversation about translation; not sure how generally interesting it is. The character isn’t immediately sympathetic to me, but I’m leaving room for him to grow on me.

Prose + voice: There’s an issue for me insofar as a lot of it’s written in American slang — a bit jarring to imagine the Brit character speaking in American slang. It’s not a deal breaker but it’s noticeable, if you’re used to Armitage’s own colloquial speech.

It’s over eight hours long.

The characters don’t get together until ch 8, about 1:20 in (yes, I fastforwarded). Hmmm. They continued to be written from a single perspective so she has to narrate his voice (she does okay with the accent, I guess) and he has to narrate hers (reminiscent of his voice for Tom Orde in Sylvester).

I am on the edge of my seat to hear the interview he gives about this one.

~ by Servetus on February 6, 2018.