I am currently listening to the Lacuna in my car on the way back and forth from The Job. Barbara Kingsolver is a heavyweight author, seriously schooled in both science and history. She likes telling big stories about likable characters in challenging times. She is a very conventional novelist. She is also very much a leftist, which I don't mind, and this bleeds through her books, but does make them a bit predictable.
She is the reader/performer of this audiobook version of her novel. Not sure how I feel about that. I want to listen to poets recite their poetry on tape. Ditto short story writers. But the novelist seems to wear out her welcome over the course of ten hours. I would rather Kingsolver be the imposing force she is offstage, looming over the novel, while a pro delivers a performance. At times, Kingsolver's narration has a forced librarian at children's story time quality to it. Again, that voice works at readings but not over ten hours. These are magical words, the voice insists.
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