A book, it is often said, is an act of co-creation. A writer puts black squiggles on a page; a reader absorbs the words and sentences, before his imagination completes the process. "It's in being read that a book becomes a book," writes Mohsin Hamid in his novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, "and in each of a million different readings a book becomes one of a million different books… "

Many books have a distinctive voice; yet no two readers hear the same cadences, rhythms and inflections. Words make different sounds in different heads; they mesh at varying speeds and - propelled by grammar, syntax and punctuation - set in motion tiny gears that inform each reading experience. As someone who loves the sound of words, and the electricity they generate in combination, I assumed I would enjoy audiobooks. After all, I had first experienced the Ramayana and the Mahabharata via dramatic oral renditions from my grandfather; encountering the tales on a page, a few years later, was not quite the same magic.

Three years ago, I downloaded The Mill on the Floss from a website that had hundreds of free audiobooks. I convinced myself that 20 hours of listening, especially when I was running long distances or riding trains, would not be as demanding as 416 pages of George Eliot's prose.

I lasted less than 20 minutes. There were too many irritants. I couldn't slow down mid-sentence, couldn't move back and forth over a paragraph, couldn't marvel at the mastery of a construction. Often I would miss a word or two, and every time I had to rewind on the iPod my frustration grew. Worst of all, I was no longer in control of my reading speed. In the words of the literary critic Sven Birkerts, my ear, and with it my "whole imaginary apparatus" was marching "in lockstep to the speaker's baton".

In October this year, accepting a website's offer for a free 30-day trial, I took another stab at audiobooks. This time I picked what Graeme Swann has termed "the biggest work of fiction since Jules Verne" - KP: The Autobiography.

Unlike in the earlier instance, when I had assumed I could listen to a book while getting on with my life, I gave KP my full attention. I sat on my couch, shut out all other sounds, wore headphones, adjusted the volume on my iPod, closed my eyes and caught each word. I wanted to persist for at least five chapters (out of 27). Thankfully I didn't have to concentrate on sentence structure and narrative devices. KP was a mighty outpouring; my only task was to patiently receive.

Listening in the middle of the night, I felt like a mute shrink, KP on a far-off couch releasing every last breath of frustration

There's an old joke about a mother watching a column of soldiers pass by. Her son is in the ranks. All those men out of step, she says, except our Fred.

I don't know if my mum ever thinks something similar, but I do know that if I was in the trenches I'd want Fred at my side. I don't march in step.

The most striking part of the opening isn't the story about Fred - who I wrongly assumed was Fred Flintoff - but the narrator's magnificent Pietersen voice. In less than a few minutes, the South African actor Byron Mondahl morphs into an assured, forthcoming KP. His consonants are thumped, the diphthongs clear, and the tone modulated. He emphasises words and phrases ("honest, brrootally honest"), and sprinkles the narrative with ahas and umms. Occasionally the volume spikes but the imitation never falters. It's like KP has dialled your number and, before you can recover from the shock, begun to vent his anguish.

But he hasn't called to talk about cricket. He knows he's a stupendous batsman. More importantly, he knows we know that. Instead, he wants to provide unimpeachable evidence of how a gang of evil Englishmen (with plenty of help from a Zimbabwean) has strategically and systematically nailed him. Within the first ten minutes the template is set: KP brings up an incident, he tells us about the participating characters, fills us in about his history with each, reveals how they tried to squash him, and analyses the injustice of it all. This is not just an autobiography, it's a radionovela teeming with juicy dressing-room gossip, angry phone calls, on-field humiliation, in-team back-stabbing, secret text messages and a fake Twitter account. The cast is varied and colourful and you wish the other characters could chime in and elevate the blunt monologue to a saucy soap opera.

Had I been reading, I might have been tempted to skim over KP's elaborate gripes about Andy Flower and Matt Prior - two men who, it seems, awoke every morning for no other reason than to plot his downfall. I would have speed-read through the petty politics and focused on the big picture. But fast-forwarding through an audiobook, especially one that constantly toggles between the serious and the trivial, means missing interesting tidbits. Increasing the pace of narration ruins the rhythm, apart from making the narrator sound outright comical. So I sat through endless details of altercations - down to eye-rolls, guffaws, and smirks. I listened to lengthy passages where the @KPGenius account is scrutinised from various angles, and tried to make sense of the saga around Pietersen's contentious texts to his South African "mate". And there were giggles - especially when KP talks about Prior taking his bicycle from England to New Zealand. First a dumbfounded, "Who the f*** does that?", and later a masterfully skewering "Le Grand Fromage getting ready for the Le Tour de France."

The great protagonist with the big cheese in seemingly happier times © PA Photos

By the middle of the book I could foretell what was coming. Flower this, Prior that, Swann this, Broad that, Strauss this, Cook that, ECB this, ECB that. My mate this, my buddy that. IPL forever. Sometimes, especially while listening in the middle of the night, I felt like a mute shrink, KP on a far-off couch, releasing every last breath of his anger and frustration. Sometimes I itched to call him out on his contradictions. At other times I wanted to ask him a pointed question or two. Of course, I had no say whatsoever. Only KP could keep talking. I could switch off the iPod or shut up and listen.

The one reason to continue was that, in between the bellyaches, KP tells us about the big challenges facing the game. He laughs at the hypocrisy of the ECB turning its back on free-to-air TV for billion-dollar deals with Sky, and then shamelessly tagging him a mercenary. He knows the value of interacting with players from around the world during the IPL months. And he spells out the absurdity of oversized support staffs, where coaches are on overdrive to justify their jobs.

But he eventually steers the book back to its operatic course. He reminds us that he loves England. He loves South Africa. He loves the IPL. He loves batting. He loves a good time. He loves the limelight. So why, oh why, he seems to ask, can't others love him back?

He tells us how Prior, while chairing a players' meeting in Melbourne in 2013, spoke as "if he had been given a few weeks to live". And Pietersen thought to himself: "Look, Cheese, between my thumb and forefinger. Can you see it? It's the world's tiniest violin playing a sad tune for you. Now go away."

By the last few chapters, KP's humour has drained out and the narrative is not as caustic. He is spent. With three minutes to go, his tone is reflective.

I had a bad day recently. We were unpacking after moving house and Jess discovered a box of cricketing mementoes, framed pictures of some of my best times on the pitch. Centuries I've scored, partnerships I've treasured. I told her to put them in the garage, perhaps keep the silver cap out but don't worry about the rest of it…

No, she said, I'm not doing that. You should be incredibly proud of what you've achieved. Who's scored more runs for England than you? Name me one other England player who's won Man of the Series in a World Cup? Or a player who's caused the MCC to have a meeting about a shot they've helped create? She reminded me of the good things.

After nearly 27 chapters of spewing bile, proving and re-proving his point by dissecting every tiny detail that led to his ouster, KP offers us the long view. He seems to finally realise that he is better off rising above the muck and settling into the rarefied space reserved for the pantheon of England's batting. It's a necessary reminder. And, after close to nine hours, a sobering one.

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is a writer based in the USA

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

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