Harry Potter Audiobooks

Pat has a really interesting post on the Harry Potter audiobooks. She’s a big Stephen Fry fan, and she gives really good reasons for her preference; so in my mind, it’s already an awesome post.

But she also makes some interesting observations which had crossed my mind before, but I’d never reflected on the reason, and Pat might just be on to something. She notes that there is an uncanny amount of similarity between the voices Fry chooses for the characters, and the way their actors speak in the films:

One of the most interesting things about the first four Harry Potter books is that he recorded them before the first movie came out, and before any of the characters were cast.

So I was thinking that all of that is due to the writing. Rowling apparently wrote all of those characters (including all the Weasleys, parents as well as the children) in such a way that whoever is reading will have such a vivid image of the characters that the voice will just be natural.