WORD PERFECT [R, 9-24-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Stephen Fry tells of how he read all the Harry Potter books for audio editions. Along about the third book, there was one phrase he just couldn’t say right, “Harry pocketed it.” He could say “Harry” and “pocketed” and “it,” but he couldn’t put them together. The audio engineers and everybody in the studio had a great and continuing laugh at his expense as he tried, unsuccessfully, again and again.

He knew that JK Rowling insisted that each audio book be an exact replica of the print copy, for some children followed along in print as they listened, learning to read. But Fry called her and demonstrated for her how he said “Harry pocket-ed-ed it” instead of “Harry pocketed it,” and asked if he could change the line to “Harry put it in his pocket.” He said there was a long pause, and then, “No,” in her best witch voice.

So he worked at it until he got it right. Or at least close. Except that in every book after that one, every book he read, at some point, she included the phrase, “Harry pocketed it.”

It reminds me of my daughter, Katie Kennedy, the great YA author [1], and her cousin, Kira Vermond, Canada’s leading kids book writer [2]. They challenge each other. “In your next book, you have to include ‘She found a crushed rose in her blue jeans,’ or some such.’” It makes the creative process even more creative.

It also reminds me of a story the engineers at HarperAudio told me when I was in NYC recording my cancer book. [3] They said that Tony Hillerman, the author of the great Southwest mystery novels featuring Navajo police officers, had been in the week before to record one of his books. There was a sentence he just could not get right, having to do with discovering body parts in a black plastic bag. So, they said, he just grabbed a pen, rewrote the sentence on his manuscript to one he could say, and recorded it that way.

If you’re the author, you can do that.

I had to do that with the audio of my cancer book, not because there was stuff I couldn’t say correctly. In fact, the engineers praised my abilities on that front. But the cassettes used in those times had limited space. Even though they brought the book out on two cassettes, there was not enough time for the whole book. So they made me rewrite to make it shorter, which also shifted some chapters around. Fortunately, though, that was done before I got into that studio in New York!

I did, however, have to do some rewriting on the spot. In the book, I had “rewritten” songs to be cancer-fighting anthems. When I would start to sing one at HarperAudio, the engineers would go ballistic, and cry, “No, no, that tune belongs to Richard Rodgers,” or some other composer. So, on the spot, I had to switch them to old folk songs or spirituals, tunes in the public domain. I’m not sure but what they didn’t come out better that way.

I don’t know why I am telling you this. Except the Fry story is terribly funny—that devilish Rowling. And the Hillerman story is funny, too, in a different way. And I like to tell about the experience with my book. Mostly, I think, I just wanted to plug Katie’s and Kira’s books. So, to be sure you haven’t wasted your time reading this, you need to go buy their books! You might even send a copy of Katie’s Constitution book to your Congress Person.

John Robert McFarland

1] Katie usually writes YA science fiction like Learning to Swear in America or What Goes Up [From the same publisher of Harry Potter], although her newest one, just out, is The Constitution Decoded: A Guide to the Document That Shapes Our Nation [Published by Workman]

2] Kira mostly writes books that answer the questions kids have about the world, such as Trending: How and Why Stuff Gets Popular.

3] Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole [Print versions by AndrewsMcMeel]