Pod Planet Presents: The Gift of the Magi
Pod Planet is an anthology series where every story is “between 83 and 100% true.” This particular episode is an audiobook narration of the famous O’Henry short story “The Gift of the Magi.”
People have discussed this story for the twist at the end. For a twenty-first century audience, this might conjure up a revelation in the person’s mind of the Sixth Sense or any of Shamalan’s earlier films. If you don’t know anything about the story aside from it has a twist, come into this with your expectations low. This is not a Hollywood or modern day book thriller type of twist. Instead of having a big world-changing event occur, the short format lends itself well to the internal moment of the twist. In essence, it’s a character twist, not a plot twist.
Focusing in on the audible components, the narrator gives a performance which rivals any professional voice over artist out there. Given the time the original story was written, his voice is well suited for this kind of twentieth century story. That being said, the monochromatic tone of the narrator’s voice makes it hard to understand the story. To use an old writing adage from George Orwell: “Good prose should be transparent, like a window pane.” The story itself is already literary fiction. It doesn’t need another barrier for the person trying to understand the story. Aside from that, it works perfectly for this type of story.
4.5/5 Stars
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