Harry Potter audio, now with philosophical musings on reading aloud

[caliburncy]

Hi,

I do not own either the Stephen Fry or the Jim Dale audiobooks, nor 
have I ever borrowed them, so my only knowledge of the differences 
between the two is from audio clips that I've found on the Internet 
(publisher and bookseller sites sometimes have clips as a way of 
advertising).

So with my lack of expertise appropriately established, I would like 
to make one addition to Amy's wonderfully in-depth comments.  There 
is one other comparison between Fry and Dale that occurs to me, and 
that is the matter of inflection.  It goes without saying, but 
obviously Fry and Dale do not read sentences with the same 
inflection, and (at least for someone like me) this has as much 
potential to inform one's preferences as the voices/accents/etc. in 
which that sentence is read.

For example, I once found audio clips of both Fry and Dale reading 
Chapter 1 of PS/SS.  This chapter has probably the strongest (if not 
necessarily the best) narratorial voice of any chapter in all of 
Harry Potter, since the narrator is in fact adopting (in a mocking 
tone) the attitudes of the Dursleys, whereas elsewhere in the novel 
the narrator is more unassociated (or, if associated with anyone, 
than with Harry, whose voice is not so marked).  Anyway, the point 
being that this narratorial voice lends itself to certain potential 
inflections: The opening line ("Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four 
Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, 
thank you very much.") invites itself to be read in a certain way, 
although individual interpretation allows for a lot of subtler leeway 
within that broader guideline.

And so the reader of the books must be sensitive to these implied 
inflections, but must also invent and embellish his or her own 
inflections as well.  But beyond the jargon of the matter, the simple 
fact is that Fry or Dale may or may not read a line or sentence in 
the same manner you imagine, and this can often have as much or more 
to do with inflection as it does with voices/accents/etc.

I suspect inflection is a large part of what Amy was in fact 
referring to when she talked about the advantages of Fry's 
descriptions, i.e. How she said he read the Quidditch matches in a 
way that may them exciting.  (Of course, there's more than inflection 
here, there is pacing, there is intonation, and so on--but in another 
sense, both pacing and intonation are what create the cumulative 
effect that we call inflection in the first place, so perhaps that's 
a moot point.)

The reason I bring this up, I suppose, is to underscore the fact that 
you can't really draw distinction between Fry and Dale's readings 
without having actually heard both and decided for yourself.  There 
is nothing I can do that will explain the way in which Fry reads that 
opening line, and the way Dale reads it.  I could say that I prefer 
Fry's version, but so what?  I can't explain -why- in a meaningful 
way that will allow you to discern whether you would likely agree or 
disagree with my assessment.  But I assure you that the aspect of 
inflection is as important as the other factors, at least for someone 
like me, who has in some senses a stronger aural imagination than a 
visual one, and therefore can't stand to hear lines read in a way 
that too strongly conflicts with the way I imagine them being spoken 
when I read it myself.  (It is for this reason that I haven't bought 
either of the audiobooks.)  So that inflection will affect which 
reader you personally find you prefer also, and there's no way to get 
a sense of that without hearing it.

At this point I wanted to help you out with links to clips of each, 
but unfortunately I can't seem to track down any of the Stephen Fry 
clips I found before.  However, there are some Jim Dale clips (in 
Real Audio format) at the official Random House page, which I'll 
provide a link for below, and there are also many other Jim Dale 
clips scattered across other sites.  And perhaps you will have more 
luck tracking down the Stephen Fry clips than I.  I know they're out 
there--or at least they used to be--but I can't seem to pinpoint 
their location at the moment.

Here's the aforementioned Jim Dale link:
http://www.randomhouse.com/audio/harrypotter/

And I hope you're able to find a way to hear Stephen Fry in order to 
compare and determine your own favorite.

Good luck,
-Luke