/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16893192]

>Introduction is 100+ pages long
>Assumes you already read the book
Why do they do this

[Anonymous No.16893199]

>>16893192
To entice you and make you want to wonder what's going on

[Anonymous No.16893289]

>>16893192
Out of the intros I bother to read, I read all of them after the text itself. I read them to get the "modern perspective on the text", not to be more knowledgeable going in.

[Anonymous No.16893375]

>>16893192
>Start reading Dubliners by Joyce
>read the introduction because I was still fairly new to reading, although I had read a lot as a child
>spoils Finnegan's Wake
>spoils Ulysses
>never read an introduction to fiction again
Thank God I don't remember the spoilers.

[Anonymous No.16893384]

>>16893375
Oh I forgot, it also spoiled multiple of the stories in Dubliners.

[Anonymous No.16893386]

>>16893384
Why did you keep reading after the first spoiler?

[Anonymous No.16893389]

all intros are actually afterwords

[Anonymous No.16893396]

>>16893386
I'm a retarded perfectionist and feel like I haven't read the full book if I don't read the introduction, so I kept reading. Once I got to the Finnegan's Wake spoiler I realized I needed to stop, but glanced down the page a bit and saw the Ulysses spoiler too. It was the actual introduction too, not the "modern perspective" bit.

[Anonymous No.16893747]

>>16893192
>read penguin edition of The Monk
>cover, introduction and preview spoils the ending
AAAAAAAAAHHUHHHHH

[Anonymous No.16893749]

Reading about a book without spoilers is an entirely pointless task

[Anonymous No.16893956]

you could always read the introduction afterwards. i don't think it's unreasonable to assume people are familiar with a classic already.

[Anonymous No.16894045]

>>16893192
because everyone knows you only read the intro after the book, or on the second reading. this is basic shit, man, get it together

[Anonymous No.16894057]

>>16893192
i always read the introduction after, if at all. but now i feel bad for neglecting those scholars who wrote the introductions

[Anonymous No.16894102]

>>16893289
I don’t need modern perspective, but I really like knowing context. For example, I just started reading The Magic Mountain. I don’t do research on books o read first, I just grabbed it off of one of /lit/‘s too 100 charts. Without the intro I never would have know the key historic context that it was started before WWI and finished after it. That kind of thing is important. When I read Crime and Punishment? The intro spoiled the ending. That was something stupid.

[Anonymous No.16894124]

>>16893396
>I'm a retarded perfectionist and feel like I haven't read the full book if I don't read the introduction
I swear this has to be the reason why they put spoilers in introductions, they want to punish perfectionists. I think it's a way to get back at that professor who failed their exam over something they missed in the appendix.

[Anonymous No.16894158]

>>16893375
>>16893747
Imagine getting filtered by spoilers and not being able to enjoy the prose and story without waiting for the dopamine kick of >muh ending.
It's literally only a problem when reading pulp detective novels.

[Anonymous No.16894167]

>>16893956
Yeh, it's entirely reasonable to assume that a person who opens a book and starts reading it from its first pages is ALREADY familiar with the content of said book.
That's completely logical and not a sign that we inhabit the clownworld

[Anonymous No.16894178]

>>16894167
This. You niggas are crazy if you think we're retarded for expecting a book to be linear.

[Anonymous No.16894187]

>>16893389
This. A few will stick to giving historical context and details for reading, I wish more did this. Nonfiction tends to have better introductions to me, fiction gets a lot of middling authors trying to attach their interpretation to a great work.

[Anonymous No.16894192]

intros are just ego boosts for hack editors

[Anonymous No.16894204]

>>16893192
If the intro was worth reading it would be its own book. skip it, rip it out, etc

[Anonymous No.16894219]

>>16894158
God I fucking hate you niggers. I can read a story if it's spoiled just fine, but I'd rather have it not spoiled.

[Anonymous No.16894227]

>>16894204
This.
The reason they put their little notes at the start of the book as "introductions" is conceit and self-importance.
Who the fuck would read the boring ramblings of some dull academic after reading a classic work, had they put their text as an afterword?
No urban-sprawl nu-intellectual living in his sad semi-detached will ever amount to ANYTHING.
Their only chance is to trick you into reading their little afterthoughts on some great literary endeavor that has been preserved through the centuries.

[Anonymous No.16895711]

>>16894219
this
I agree

[Anonymous No.16895750]

>>16894158
pseud bug take

[Anonymous No.16895774]

>>16893192
>introduction
why do they do this

[Anonymous No.16895789]

>>16893384
Spoilers? What is this? A Marvel movie?

[Anonymous No.16895807]

>>16894158
>enjoy the prose
do people actually give a shit about this?
I mean normal healthy people not you insufferable wallflower english lit faggots
I read the book for the ideas not for the fucking order of the words or any other bullshit
seems like some gay female shit to me

[Anonymous No.16895834]

>>16895807
Probably because you're a Philistine with a low IQ, but it's okay most people are.

[Anonymous No.16895853]

>>16895834
IQ is too high for such faggotry

[Anonymous No.16895939]

>>16895853
>He believes online IQ tests
Low IQ confirmed

[Anonymous No.16895981]

>>16895939
here's some prose for you: stay seething; remain coping, you mediocre intellect worm

[Anonymous No.16895994]

>>16895981
>r-remain seething
>t.

[Anonymous No.16896005]

>>16895994
the whole concept of prose is inherently feminine (or homosexual)
you cannot refute this

[Anonymous No.16896019]

>>16894187
>A few will stick to giving historical context and details for reading, I wish more did this. Nonfiction tends to have better introductions to me
This is exactly my opinion.

[Anonymous No.16896022]

>>16895807
>I read the book for the ideas
Go back

[Anonymous No.16896045]

>>16893192
its comfier to hold a book when youre somewhere in the middle pagewise than at an extreme end, so i dont mind a lot of skippable front matter

[Anonymous No.16896049]

>>16896005
There isn't a single noteworthy female writer known for her prose writing (or poetry for that matter). It has been a male activity since ancient Greece.

[Anonymous No.16896058]

>>16896022
>i read books for the literal words used and the order of those words
words are a tool for ideas
they are not the end goal you faggots
no one cares about your gay sentences except other people who like writing gay sentences

[Anonymous No.16896065]

>>16896049
thats not true i just thought of like three

[Anonymous No.16896069]

>>16896058
the self exposed bugman

[Anonymous No.16896073]

>>16896049
men talk to communicate ideas
women talk for the sake of talking
hence it is inherently feminine

[Anonymous No.16896081]

>>16896069
i am the absolute opposite of a bugman

[Anonymous No.16896082]

>>16896073
T. bug

[Anonymous No.16896088]

Read it afterwords as a short essay or afterword if anything, or skip altogether

[Anonymous No.16896089]

>>16896082
>t. faggot

[Anonymous No.16896098]

>>16896089
The point of literature is to invoke pleasure through mimesis (the imitation of reality) and cartharsis. Ideas are completely irrelevant to this process. If you're only interested in ideas then perhaps you should read reference books and manuals.

[Anonymous No.16896108]

>>16896073
maybe you should stick to sparknotes.

[Anonymous No.16896109]

>>16896058
Okay this is getting embarrassing

[Anonymous No.16896145]

>>16896098
>>16896108
>>16896109
what the hell kind of books do you even read for this ?
do you read tumblr lesbians self published poetry or what
you are pretentious freaks as far as I am concerned

[Anonymous No.16896194]

>>16896145
Nabokov
James Joyce
Rimbaud
Pynchon
Keats
Shelley
Lord Byron
And the list goes on

[Anonymous No.16896211]

>>16896194
i see
and how much estrogen pills do you take per day?

[Anonymous No.16896326]

>>16894158
fuck off waldun