Adventures with audio books

I started listening to Sword in the Stone while commuting to a gig that was a 40 minute drive from my house. I really enjoyed it because it is so whimsical, so random as my teen sons would say. I can see why JKRowling counts it as an inspiration for her writing. It kept reminding me of the Harry Potter books.

I did not know, however, that when TH White decided to compile his Arthurian books, including Sword in the Stone, into The Once and Future King, that he edited and even rewrote big sections of each individual book. This fact set me up for a major case of befuddlement!

One afternoon when I was home and listening to Sword in the Stone, I drifted off to sleep. I could remember that Arthur was learning to be an owl with Archimedes, and when I started to regain consciousness he was in a giant's castle and King Pelinore was looking for his toothbrush. I wondered what on earth I had missed, but thought, no worries. I'll just re-read the section from our print copy of Once and Future King and continue on with the book.

Only problem was I couldn't find any mention of giants or toothbrushes. I started thinking maybe I had dreamed it all.

The next time I had a chance to listen to it, I started once again at the owl part of the story and once again started drifting off to sleep just as the episode with the giants was starting. Aha! There really is a section with giants, I thought. But the next morning when I once again flipped through the print edition I couldn't find it! I was beginning to think I was losing my mind. I was further perplexed because I also couldn't find in the audio version a section I had seen in the print edition where Arthur has an adventure with storks.

I was a perplexed. Puzzled. Befuddled. And a little worried about the state of my mind.

Fortunately my ds was also listening to Sword in the Stone, and I had told him about my confusion and questionable state of mind. He finally caught up with me in the book and was able to reassure me that there is indeed an adventure with giants, that King Pelinore had indeed been looking for a lost toothbrush! Hallelujah, I wasn't crazy! He was confused that there should be a chapter featuring storks, and was adament there hadn't been one.

I finally looked it up on Wikipedia and learned about the differences between the original Sword in the Stone and the version of it in Once and Future King. What a relief! The Naxos company, for some unknown reason, decided to produce an audio version each original book rather than the entire Once and Future King.

I have also learned that when my eyes start getting heavy to use the "sleep" function on my iPod dock so it shuts down after 15minutes!