Melville said it best: "Call me Ishmael." One of the best known first lines in literature.

What follows in the rest of Moby Dick, of course, is a tremendously rich exploration of human triumph and folly. When you read those three words on page one, you are immediately transported into a personal story, a reminiscence of an incredible adventure as seen through the eyes of the teller and you can easily allow yourself to be swept up in the action and the time.

The very colorful and widely varied cast of characters—whether simple or complex, scurrilous or noble—involve and stretch your imagination to include an entire century and range of human sensibility both gone by and somehow universal and eternal. A truly great story, although perhaps a little archaic in its style and content; for example, the use of 36 semicolons in one full page sentence and the 30 page digression on whale blubber.

Fascinating, perhaps, at the time. Less so now. But the determined reader will muddle through and glean the essence of this great epic nonetheless.

When, however, an actor reads those words with the intention of transforming cold print into living speech for what is to be a recorded performance—an audiobook—all those attributes in that story become challenges. Each becomes a question which demands an answer.

Under the best of circumstances, a performer in full command of his or her skills functions as an illuminator and directly communicates the author's most profound and most carefully nuanced intention to the listener using the human voice, the most versatile instrument ever created.

Indeed, in the creation of that performance, in bringing the story and its characters to vibrant life, the performer must ask and answer many thousands of questions—as many as possible during preparation before recording begins, but most on the fly in the studio, where the rubber meets the road. After all, every word in the book is now going to be spoken aloud, every character in the book is going to speak aloud and every nuance of every word slipping into the reading is a choice the performer makes.

Call me Ishmael. OK, why? Why put it that way? Isn't that your real name? Hmmm. Whether it is or isn't, putting it that way could indicate a certain world-weariness or a bit of cynicism.

It doesn't seem to be the first thing a naive person would say. It seems to say "Sit down and listen, I have a story to tell," but doesn't really tell us anything.

Should there be a smugness about it? Should it be friendly, cosy and inviting, or cool and distant?

What is best here and why? Better choose well; the choice has to be supported for the rest of the book.