/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18217171]

>introduction
>it spoils the end of the book in the first few sentences
Why?

[Anonymous No.18217247]

academics aren't even aware you can enjoy books

[Anonymous No.18217558]

>>18217171
How many times mist we have this discussion? It's because they expect people to be at least somewhat familiar, if not totally aware of, the plot of a major work like Moby-Dick or the Odyssey, so the plot couldn’t be “spoiled”. They also expect the plot to not be the most important thing to a reader, so spoiling it shouldn’t be much of an issue. In reality of course, intros are just gigs for academics (or sometimes done out of affection for an author, specifically from a friend or a literary figure directly inspired by the author).

[Anonymous No.18217579]

>>18217171
>>18217247
Because reading isn't about the plot or surprised, in fact it is arguably better so that you are able to understand the themes from the outset.
Literature is not about liking a character or being hooked on a plot. This is reading like a child.

[Anonymous No.18217810]

>end of the book spoils the introduction
DAMMIT I WAS GOING TO READ THAT NEXT

[Anonymous No.18217842]

>>18217558
>>18217579
>y-y-you want to enjoy the plot of your books!!?
you cant do that!!!! you have to read it like homework!!!

[Anonymous No.18217862]

>spoils every chapter at the start of each chapter
Why bother reading the chapters?

[Anonymous No.18217868]

>>18217862
For the proooose

[Anonymous No.18217880]

>>18217171
>reading (((introductions))) written by anyone other than the author
nobody cares about that shit

[Anonymous No.18217887]

>>18217842
Nice self-portrait

[Anonymous No.18217891]

Never read introductions.

>>18217558
This is false; the authors of introductions are just trying to use the reflected glory of the work they're introducing to bolster their own egos; proving to naive readers that they've totally already read this book that YOU haven't even read yet just lmao is part of that.

[Anonymous No.18217942]

>>18217579
the hard truth is that you can enjoy books from all of these angles and more. if the plot was so unimportant why did all these great authors include it in the first place? spoilers should not keep you from reading a book.. they can even enhance it sure but in general, newbies should skip introductions since its better to take their own meaning and experience from the work. for example, a joke where the punchline is known ahead of time will be mad much less funny. Fiction usually doesn't work this way but the point is that you don't know beforehand

[Anonymous No.18217945]

>>18217579
Aphantasia cope: the post

[Anonymous No.18217948]

>>18217942
*made less funny, not mad

[Anonymous No.18217990]

>>18217880
this
ill read a preface by the author but if its an introduction written by someone else i wont read it.

[Anonymous No.18218005]

The frequency of these threads really proves that nobody here rereads books

[Anonymous No.18218488]

>>18217579
Shut up idiot. Themes don't matter anywhere near as much as plot and prose. I bet you're the kind of faggot who thinks Eva's a masterpiece because it's "deep" despite the nonsensical conclusion

[Anonymous No.18218511]

Caring about spoilers is modernist. Unless a book is written with the reader's ignorance in mind, it really doesn't matter. Only a few genres (mystery, for example) actually benefit from this.

[Anonymous No.18218521]

>>18218511
>Caring about spoilers is modernist
is that a bad thing?it's bad because it's new?

[Anonymous No.18218543]

>>18218521
It means most great books aren't negatively affected (and in some cases, are positively affected) by already knowing the story.
Going in to Homer for example, you should know the story already, like his listeners would have.

[Anonymous No.18218589]

On the contrary: Ephesians 4:2

>>18218005
You pointing this out has just lowered my opinion of this place another peg, which i didn't think was possible. When I first started lurking, I thought the "nobody here actually reads," joke was just that. However, the longer I lurked the more apparent it became that it isnt a joke at all. It's literally the central motif of this bored. There are, no doubt, plenty of people who have a genuine interest in literature and or philosophy around here. Theyve demonstrated, unfortunately, themselves to be a tangible minority. The longer I lurked, the more bad opinions I read. And not just in a subjective sense of disagreement, but flagrant misinterpretation of the text being opined about. I told myself, when I first noticed this reality, that it was all a joke. That it was board culture to pretend to get something totally wrong. But as time went by, my impression of these sorts of threads changed. If they are jokes, theyre masterful. As they perfectly emulate the appearance of someone whose googled an idea, and simply copy and pastes the associated quotations alongside a horrible opinion that betrays no understanding of context textually or historically. Opinions that continually remind me of people I knew in highschool whose Instagram handle was a Kierkegaard pun, of who their knowledge of was limited to their vauge memories of a "School of Life," video they watched. Ive stopped answering questions on philosphy and I've stopped engaging in discussions about specific ideas. You can't engage with someone who can't differentiate between logical validity and soundness. And the racism only makes it that much more ghastly...

THUS: My seethe has ended

[Anonymous No.18218738]

>>18217862
Gaiman copied his chapter titles in The Sandman

[Anonymous No.18218900]

>>18217171
That's called an "abstract"

[Anonymous No.18219814]

>>18218543
fair enough

[Anonymous No.18219868]

>>18217171
>Why?

That's the point of a scholarly introduction. So undergraduates don't have to read 400 texts a semester. You should probably read about 400 scholarly introductions to texts in a literature degree a semester. And maybe 20 texts. And 80 secondary critical works other than introductions.

[Anonymous No.18220436]

>>18218488
>plot
no
>prose
yes

[Anonymous No.18220441]

I read for neither the plot nor the content nor the words. I simply consume a long succession of printed letters.

[Anonymous No.18220445]

>>18217171
bc only plebs with 80 IQ read the introduction

[Anonymous No.18221405]

>>18217842
you the autist that got angry at the history teacher for spoiling the end of the troyan war?

[Anonymous No.18221452]

>>18217880
God damn this all my schmitt books have some gay introduction by somebody ive never heard of talking about how evil he was like fuck off i just want to enjoy the book i paid for.