The Hunting of the Snark

By: Lewis Carroll

Narrated by: Boris Karloff

But what is a Snark? "Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all."
-Lewis Carroll©2008 Saland Publishing (P)2008 Saland Publishing

Boris Karloff reads Lewis Carroll - perfect!

What made the experience of listening to The Hunting of the Snark the most enjoyable?

Boris Karloff! I mean, seriously, it's Boris freakin' Karloff! He's absolutely perfect for this material; I love his voice.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I don't really have a favorite character; I just love the poem as a whole. It's my favorite work of Lewis Carroll, and it's always been a goal of mine (one I fear I will never achieve) to memorize the whole thing.

What does Boris Karloff bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He's just the perfect voice, with emphasis in all the right places. There's no one else I could imagine to do a better job.

A true classic

A true classic, much like a Bach sonata, short but perfect in form. I truly enjoyed it.

Some parts were skipped

I was very disappointed that some of my favorite lined were skipped in this reading.

Wonderful wacky poem

Boris Karloff is the perfect reader of this amusing and mysterious poetic work.

Delightful, and beats several listens.

Savory & Strange--but Missing a Fit!!!

Boris Karloff has a grand time with Lewis Carroll's epic nonsense quest poem, reading the pointedly crazy lines with a cadaverously enthusiastic and engaging rhythm. It sounds at times as if he's not reading so much as inhabiting the poem, adventuring in an echoing and fantastic landscape of chasms and crags, always staying right between gravitas and camp.

My only complaint--and it's a big one--is that this version is NOT (I repeat, NOT) unabridged, because it's missing an entire Fit or chapter (the sixth one of eight, the one about the Barrister's Dream). I also caught Karloff skipping a stanza in an earlier fit... And the humorous preface in which Carroll "defends" himself from the charge of nonsense and explains how to pronounce "slithy toves" is missing.

In conclusion, if you get this expecting a fun romp with Karloff and Carroll rather than a 100% complete unabridged reading of The Hunting of the Snark, you will enjoy it.

You gotta love the Horror-B-Movie King declaiming from his sepulcher,

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles ands soap.