I haven't heard Eliot read before - it was shocking - not at all what I heard in my head when I read his lines. He sounds sepulchral like Marley's ghost in Dicken's, A Christmas Carol. Perhaps I was hearing my own voice - my inflections, pauses and emphases - is it akin to someone saying the book was better than the movie?
Why?- because the film you directed in your own head was better than what Hollywood produced...yeah, that's what I think.