Ivanhoe

A reader familiar with this famous romance could well wonder why in heck the gallant knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe prefers the bland Saxon Rowena to the beautiful, passionate, intelligent, and courageous Jewess, Rebecca. Maybe it's peer pressure from his pals Robin Hood and Richard Lionheart. Maybe it's a preference for blondes. At any rate, this abridgment throws no light on the matter, for much of Sir Walter's character development has disappeared. Narrator Jonathan Oliver expertly gives the dramatis personae as much life as the truncated text allows. Most of the derring-do remains, however, which Oliver also makes the most of. Perhaps because he is a bit too measured, as well as melodramatic, the chivalric doings at times seem silly and the dialogue more pretentious than eloquent. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were the Karloff and Lugosi of the British horror film revival of the '60s. Cushing went on to better things, but Lee's breakout never quite. . .broke out. Here, narrating an abridged version of Scott's classic chivalric romance, he demonstrates one possible reason. Despite his sonorous voice, elegant accent, and spot-on characterizations, he never fully engages with the material or the listener. The abridger could have helped him also by less drastically emasculating the derring-do. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine