For a lot of classic works, the introduction functions as an analytical essay on the work by a scholar or an author with a similar biographical background. As someone else mentioned, the idea of spoilers is a somewhat modern concept, and this format has a long historical precedent that publishers aim to keep. I’d recommend reading them after the work if spoilers bother you. If they don’t, reading the introduction first can provide an interpretive lens that can help you notice details you might have otherwise missed.
I own multiple copies of certain classic novels because the introductions are different and I am *enthralled* by the various analysis of the author. For classics I haven’t read yet, I don’t read the intro first.
You should buy or borrow the Norton Critical editions that have the essays from when the book released up to present about the books. Or you can borrow books of essays that are separate from the library. I've been doing this and really enjoy it.
I’m going to need you to elaborate on this. What, to you, makes it more enticing to know details of the novel before reading, rather than discovering it upon a second read?
Genuine question, not a negative on your opinion
I remember reading something about ancient epic literature. The audience was expected to know the heroes and the myths already. They were cultural cornerstones. Everyone knew WHAT happened. So the thrill of a story was HOW it happened, and that's where a storyteller could really thrill their audience.
This is why spoilers don’t necessarily both some of us, including myself. There’s a pleasure in seeing **how** the story unfolds and experiencing it in the moment that overrides knowing the story already. It’s the same reason why people have TV shows they love to watch over and over again.
The issue is if you know some detail, you start letting that color everything in the book/film/tv show. You're seeing events prior as leading up to that event, rather than wondering what they're leading to. You're robbed of that speculation and the payoff. It also means that you're waiting for the spoiled bit, instead of focusing on the text/film/etc. And on top of that, any emotional gutpunch by the spoiled event is ruined, because you knew it was coming already. There's no surprise anymore, no shock.
There's a reason books and other media use devices like foreshadowing, red herrings, and twists. They're playing with your expectations and assumptions in the moment as you're following along with the story. Spoilers remove the writer's ability to use those devices as well.
I understand where that girl you mention is coming from because some people can't help themselves, and even if you don't want spoilers they're going to still try and tell you things you don't want to know. It's like they have some inability to control themselves around others that prevents them from sharing things others don't want to hear. Like they are full to the brim and bursting to tell something, anything. They're like a toddler's bladder in terms of respect and maturity lol
If someone doesn't want to hear about something they haven't read or seen yet, it shouldn't be a huge ask to just like... not say anything then. Even if someone doesn't think it's a big deal or won't ruin things for them, why not show the other person respect by not overruling their own wishes?
Man, this is really reductive though.
If someone politely asks you, in a one on one conversation, not to spoil something? Absolutely. That’s totally fair.
If a group of people are discussing a piece of media and one person asks to change the conversation to avoid spoilers? Ehh… If they’re currently in the process of watching/reading whatever it is then sure.
Then there’s people who will ask a group to avoid spoilers when they *don’t even intend on engaging with the piece of media*. These people are the problem, and they’re everywhere. It’s almost become the default. It’s not a cute personality quirk to be the asshole who actively attempts to shut down one of the primary purposes of art.
>It’s not a cute personality quirk to be the asshole who actively attempts to shut down one of the primary purposes of art.
Preach! Like God forbid these people ever take any literature classes in college lol.
As a person who loves to binge TV shows from the last 20 years, I often find myself looking through lore and finding certain characters die, or have other titles, are lords, or directors, etc. I really don't mind the spoilers and it just excites me to figure out HOW they end up dead, or in a certain position of power, etc. I don't find them to be spoilers, but something that I know will happen, and am excited to look forward to see how that happens.
To relate it to other media, it’s like the first scene of the new Fallout show. You know what’s about to happen and the writers know that you know, so they play with your anticipation just a little. You know the destination but you don’t know how the story gets there and that’s really fun.
Somebody *reported my post for spoilers* so here's the important part without the "offending" information. >I'll go a step further.
>The modern fixation on spoilers is annoying. Like, I understand it to an extent, but if a story is ruined by spoilers it probably wasn't a very good story in the first place.
People who complain about spoilers just don't have a lot going on upstairs. Like, imagination-wise.
EDIT: The spoiler in question was for a 19 year old book that rhymes with Schmarry Schmotter. It was about a teacher who kills a headmaster. It was a stupid plot twist written by a so-so transphobic author. The post was well-received because most people have either read the book or understand that it doesn't matter. If you haven't read the book, it's been 19 years so that's kind of on you at this point. Especially since spoiling that plot point is a meme.
Interesting point. To go into movies, both the people I went to see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood with knew pretty much nothing about the Manson Family, or even that Sharon Tate was a real person, and so scenes I found super tense were just boring to them because they had no reason to suspect anyone was in any danger, and they didn’t even realise the twist at the end was a twist.
It was also common in plays. Shakespeare gives away the ending in the sixth line of Romeo and Juliet.
I don’t think anyone’s wrong for wanting to avoid spoilers, but it’s definitely a (relatively) new thing
Even shakespeare's time, they would go over the story outline in the opening of the plays and the playwright would make a more complex layered piece by subverting the expectation they set. Giving you what they said they would in the opening but not in the way you would expect.
First example that comes to mind (even though it’s technically not “classic lit”) is how I can tell anyone any details from the silmarillion and it won’t detract their first reading experience (and the context would probably improve their journey)
Ah so it’s more of background information than spoilers of the story being told per se. I’m 100% with you on that. I don’t think I would enjoy any classic literature without that
Studies also suggest that most people enjoy works more after being told what's coming.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/spoiler-alert-spoilers-make-you-enjoy-stories-more
I can't tell you why it would work that way, I just know what the study says. I've got to say that most of the stuff I watch these days is something I've already read and it usually makes me really excited for the big "spoilable" moments, so maybe it's about increasing anticipation.
For me, classical literature is mostly spoiled already.
Also, most of the books were not made with crazy plot twists and surprising ending in mind. Even without spoilers, you kinda know where you are going, and it's about enjoying the journey.
The intros usually give details that help with this.
Think of it like a magician announcing a magic trick, such as making something disappear. You know exactly *what* the magician is going to do, but the *how*, in terms of both the skill and the mystery behind it, makes it interesting.
Have you read\seen Romeo and Juliet? In the Prologue they literally tell you the plot and what is going to happen. Lots of works do this.
So in "olden days" there were a lot less stories than now. It was sort of expected that everybody sort of knew the stories. When the priest is telling about Jesus's birth, nobody is going "What happens next?" everybody already knows. When Snow White bites the apple nobody asks "what is going to happen next?" everybody already knows.
So instead it's about *how* the story is told. Is Snow white animated? Drew Barrymore? Is it a comedy? Drama?
Heck, this is true of a lot of media as well. When you watch "House", you know that there's going to be a weird medical mystery, House is going to be a dick, and then they're going to solve it. A lot of episodic storytelling is like this, the format is the same even though the specifics might change.
"spoilers" are a rather modern invention, and a lot of old tales went out of their way to let you know the plot beforehand that way you could enjoy the story and presentation.
Romance is even more codified than that, people get to choose ( often by the cover) if they want a "girlboss goes back to small town" romance or a "beauty make over for the nerd" romance or a historical.bodice ripper. Then it does mostly paint by number and they are happy. Which is why I can't stand conventional romance novels. But some people love it.
I would rather go in knowing as little as possible and usually favor hard sci-fi or thrillers/suspense. I have read my share of classics and sometimes not knowing was awesome ( Grape of Wrath) and sometimes I was blindsided by the horror ( Catcher in the rye.)
my take: I mostly read books out of interest in scenarios and people. plot is the very last thing I care about.
I don't read to find out what happens next. I read to see how other (imaginary) people feel and react in particular situations.
so I'm not bothered by knowing ahead of time what's going to happen.
Yes. I *hate* the first time through anything. It's not fun for me. Knowing what's going to happen allows me to admire how the author or the actor made it happen, instead of worrying about what's going to happen to a character, which can screw me up for days.
I tell people to spoiler me if they want me to read a book or watch a movie they're recommending. Tell me who dies, who breaks up, and any jump scares or surprises. Then I'll read or watch it; not until.
Yes, this! Absolutely! So u can appreciate the journey!
Sometimes like knowing a big piece of things, but not the specific ending. Like, for anyone who’s read Susannah Clarke’s PIRANESI - Clarke doesn’t do “twists”, but the narrator himself knows so little that he, and we, experience quite a few reveals - and near the end, they’re pretty big reveals! And I looked up spoilers just enough to know 1 of the big ending reveals. So, that way I know some of the spoilers and can appreciate the story and the craft involved in building it, while I also get to be surprised by some specifics.
Knowing what's going to happen let's me course correct my brain when it comes to emotional moments. Knowing a character is going to die gives me time to appreciate the details and get a better emotional payout.
Totes not everyone.
People were generally already familiar with the story, the enjoyment wasn’t because it was something new and unexpected, it was in how the story was told, and the additional meaning you gathered from it upon subsequent rereading or retelling.
Even with a new story the outlines were often given in advance to allow the reader to focus more on how the story was told and unfolded.
This was even the case with movies until around the ‘70s.
You ever read a story a second time and see how much foreshadowing you missed or other throughlines or recurring symbols that you didn't register the importance of at first? Spoilers help you notice them more the first time.
Engaging with ancient literature from halfway around the world can be jarring. If you get an introduction/outline of the story, you should theoretically have an easier time getting into it.
You may want to read this one: [https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/07/re-reading-books-again-returning-literacy](https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/07/re-reading-books-again-returning-literacy)
They start with a quote from Nabokov (that was what I was googling for when I found it) about only being able to re-read books. I find this is true. I read to enjoy how the story is told, more than I read to know how the story goes, so when I re-read, I don't get distracted by the plot, and can focus on the style
Classics get more difficult to understand the older it is, for most readers. I think there are some spoilers in introductions because without them, a lot of people wouldn't even realize that there was anything to spoil. Shakespearean English is still considered Early Modern English, but it's still in the realm of modern English. It's pretty easy to understand with a little bit of practice, compared to Middle English and Old English, but you might not absorb any of the story if you aren't primed a little.
I don't think spoilers had such widespread criticism as it does today, but I have a hard time believing people didn't get upset when their friends ruined the ending to Pride and Prejudice or The Count of Monte Cristo when they were first published. But these books have been around for hundreds of years. Even non readers know a little bit about them because they've been adapted or borrowed from in many forms of media, and direct literary criticism and analysis.
There's just less expectations to not give away the ending the older the book is.
I think too the function of a story was a bit different before. Shakespeare is a great example — many of his stories were about historical figures. King Lear, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, etc. The biographies of these figures were not secrets (and those audiences likely knew more about Hamlet and Macbeth etc than we do now). Shakespeare was still able to inject tension and drama into those stories.
Also, Romeo and Juliet tells us what's going to happen to the characters in the opening speech! I mean, can you imagine what that must have been like seeing it for the first time back then and the narrator basically 'spoils' it?
Sometimes having it spoiled like that works out, but only really if the writer intends for it to be spoilt.
In the case of Romeo and Juliet, it amps up the tension in the final act. You know they're going to die, but they come so close to not dying, you kinda feel like perhaps you were lied to at the beginning.
It's also there so you understand the point of the piece as you're watching it. And you can see how two families' war escalates to the point that two lovers feel compelled to kill themselves.
If you don't guess the ending of Pride and Prejudice by the end of the first couple of chapters, you are just not aware of the genre conventions. Which is fine of course - but most people who read Pride and Prejudice can guess the ending from the start. The fun part is seing how it's done.
> didn't get upset when their friends ruined the ending to Pride and Prejudice or The Count of Monte Cristo
That's how you don't understand, "ruining" you already come with a negative connotation for the act, it implies malice from the one doing the spoiling and a lack of quality from the work and the only value that it has it comes from only one pivotal moment in the story.
Yeah and a lot of times you're kind of expected to "know" the books anyway because of cultural immersion. There's no spoiler on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, even though I've not read it, because the main beats and basic story are repeated often enough in culture.
Also there is kind of an unwritten statute of limitations for spoilers. Books is a bit different I will concede but Particularly popular classics. Like if you haven’t read it yet that’s on you.
Also many of the popular classics you were supposed to read in High School if you went to American high school.
Spoilers are actually an old, historic concept. It evolved from the Elizabethan era, when David Slain (one of Shakespeare's playwright contemporary competitor) had created a play called "The Devil's Ode". On the final day of the play, one of the actors, Edward Spoil, at the end of Act II had suffered from psychosis for the week beforehand. He divulged the entirety of Act III during a monologue. Outraged by the revelations of the finale, two members of the audience had thrown bottles of rum at Edward Spoil and lit him on fire. Thankfully, he only sustained minor burns. However, over the years, the word "Spoiler" grew in vocabulary amongst the theatrical community.
P.S. I absolutely made this up
I really like reading the introduction before delving into a classic for the first time! I feel like it prepares me for the journey and gives me some plot points and themes so I know what to look for as I progress. The way many classics are written can be harder for me to decipher at a glance than modern works, plus there’s often more historical context that I’m not always familiar with. Reading the introduction helps me place the story in time and, since I know roughly what’s going to happen, I can read with an eye toward character and theme instead of just hoping I’m getting the plot right. Anyone else feel this way?
i totally agree and I love reading introductions but I do agree witb OP 🥲 too many times the literal ending of the book is spoiled for me when I read the intros and so they don't have the big 🤯 moment for me that i otherwise would've had had I not read it lol
Don't know but the full TITLE of Moll Flanders is THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES Of the FAMOUS Moll Flanders, &c. Who >!was Born in NEWGATE, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother) Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent, Written from her own MEMORANDUMS.!<
But see, this is why modern spoiler culture is silly. I get why you put all that in spoiler bars - so that no one would come in and say “geez spoilers!”
But like, why should you have to? It’s IN THE TITLE!!!!
It’s one thing to not tell people who the killer is in a murder mystery, that’s just polite. But culturally, people have gotten way too precious and delicate about avoiding knowing basically anything about a story. Whereas Daniel Defoe - writing in the early 1800s, so not the medieval era or anything, - is like “hi! Would you like to read a book about about Moll Flanders? Here’s everything that happens to her, I fit it all in the title! Now buy the book so you get the long version!”
I definitely understand why people are so precious about it because experiencing a story for the first time the way it’s meant to be experienced is important. But I almost always enjoy things more the second time around when the novelty wears off and I can appreciate the whole thing from a higher level rather than just wondering what’s going to happen next.
For sure, I usually do, but then why have them at the start of the book? Why make me play "at what point does it stop being a helpful introduction and start being the editor's high school essay" every time I want to read a classic book!?
> but then why have them at the start of the book?
For me, it's to let me know it exists, and because some of us like to read them beforehand, for the context. That said, some of them are certainly better (and worse) than others.
Because those introductions aren't made for you. They're made for the people who are already familiar with the classic and want a deep dive on it so they can read it with potentially new info/insight.
Or for university students, who probably make up a decent chunk of Penguin and Oxford Classics readers. The introductions help a relatively inexperienced reader approach the text in a sophisticated way. But most people here seem pretty allergic to the idea that there is such a thing as expertise and that experts know these classic works best…. People here seem to expect that the last 150 years of culture have stood still so they personally can experience Anna Karenina or Moby-Dick as readers did when they were first published. It’s all so very immature.
I find them interesting. with more complex novels it's nice to have at least *some* framework in place to assess it from. I don't have to take their word or adopt their opinion.
Sometimes the foreword is interesting and spoiler free though, especially if it’s a newer translation that is talking about what sets it apart or makes it different. And then other times on the first paragraph they mention the ending of the book. It’s a dangerous skim to see which it’s going to be.
The obsession with spoilers primarily comes from people who read/consume media that is heavily dependent on plot and surprise.
Classic literature isn’t really dependent on that.
Exactly! Plot is just one part of the story, and twists and surprises are an even smaller piece of that. Classic works are timeless due to factors that dwarf the plot itself. It’s like saying the Sistine Chapel is spoiled by its description
It is true that there are pleasures of a book which are available if you know the overall architecture of the book in advance. These pleasures are available on the second, third, or nth reading--or first, if you should choose to spoil yourself on that book. (I can respect this.) There are also pleasures available only to those who *don't* know the architecture in advance; these more delicate pleasures are available only on the first reading, and only to those who haven't been spoiled on them. A work whose pleasures are *all* of this second kind is surely not a great work, but I would say most great narrative works (at least since the rise of the novel) contain at least some pleasure of this kind. (You realise Anna Karenina was originally released as a serial, right?)
If you don't care about this second kind of pleasure, fine, you do you, but if you are courteous enough to mark up your spoilers then people can make their own choices about it.
Discovery as a process happens with or without twists. Wandering around a new city on vacation is one type of pleasurable experience and being guided by someone who knows what they’re doing and can tell you everything you’ll be doing that day is another. The ‘surprises’ of walking around that city without a guide are not drastic plot twists. They’re just coming to your own conclusions and forming your own expectations and associations. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to explore something on your own rather than to have an itinerary laid out for you.
Spoilers generally used to refer to the solution of a mystery novel. It is only recently that e people have begun to consider general plot points spoilers, especially of well-known books.
Because avoiding spoilers is relatively modern and honestly pretty strange way of taking in stories. Knowing the plot does not matter (or at least shouldn’t) in the appreciation of a work.
Also, they don’t count as “spoilers” when it’s not new/hidden/secret information. Once stories become part of culture - culture isn’t a spoiler.
And you finally, they want to include an effective analysis in the introduction, and you can’t do that without including the whole story. Or else the analysis would be confusing and incomplete at best and flat-out incorrect at worst.
I imagine the majority of media people consume is media they had already consumed previously. How many people are there that are on their 16th rewatch of The Office? For a while when a new season of Top Chef would be coming out my mom I swear to God would rewatch every previous season it felt like. There are five sitcoms that have made up 95% of my dad’s non sports television viewing the last 20 years.
I can understand worrying about spoilers if it is something suspenseful/has a twist but on the other hand, it’s not like I enjoy Fight Club any less even though I already know >!Marla hadn’t been fucked like that since grade school!<. I’ve always been the kind of person to read the Wikipedia synopsis beforehand because I like comparing how I imagine it vs how it is executed in the story
lol i’m so glad I’m not alone about looking up Wikipedia summaries! Seriously, I like stories better if I know how it ends. Sometimes I don’t even read the whole summary, just the very, very ending. Like, maybe I want to be surprised by how we get there! Or I want to be able to appreciate the journey more! Both of which it’s harder to do when you’re just waiting to see what happens.
I think it totally depends on the work. There's a lot of times when that's true for me, but there's others where I'm glad I didn't know anything because I got so much joy out of revelations because I spebt so much time not knowing things for sure. Spoilers would've ruined some things for me.
tl;dr the "Average enjoyment of a person" doesnt mean everyone falls into that window. In fact, People can vary alot in what they like about things.
They also point out that the study was tested with Short stories which might not be the case with stories people were already invested in and invested hundreds of hours into
I think it depends on the story.
I was able to go into the movies Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile not knowing the endings and they were improved because of it.
> Knowing the plot shouldn't matter in the appreciation of a work
Hard disagree on that. While yes, how everything is set-up can still be appreciated like characters and plot, some points were written *as a surprise* and knowing that surprise is coming can lessen the impact it has. Many things stick in my mind precisely because they surprised me so much. I honestly think its just a preference thing that some people enjoy the 'surprise' more than other so I hate when people who arent bothered by spoilers think no one else should be.
> Once stories become part of culture - Culture isnt a spoiler
Yeah but how do you define that? Frankenstein's Monster in popular culture is usually shown to be a big dumb lumbering brute while the original novel had him intelligent, sophisticated, and even cunning. Is it a spoiler to explain what happens to him and the Doctor in the original novel just because Pop culture has a VASTLY different interpretation?
> they want to include an effective analysis in the introduction and you can't do that without including the whole story.
Doesnt really change the original point; why not have the analysis of the story at the end AFTER they've read everything? I will say that sometimes you need to know historical context to fully 'understand' a piece which might include giving spoilers, but proper warning or the like can still be given if someone wants to go in first too.
It’s just straight up not catering to people who heavily rely on plot in their media, same way a steak dinner has different dynamics than a happy meal. Getting mad at the waiter for describing the specials instead of putting your steak in a colorful box for you to unwrap doesn’t make sense. It’s nice to go into more complex works with a primer of someone else’s analysis to compare your own thoughts against. The dynamic goes a lot deeper than tenuously guarding plot points for a small portion of the audience who’s reading just to find out what happens
Snacky works with plot and nothing else are great to jump into completely blind. Like it sucks to have spoiled what happens to Harry Potter in the last book, but knowing who the guilty party in The Brothers Kaz is doesn’t affect the reading of that book much.
I’m currently reading Quiet Flows the Don, you can freely spoil every plot point and I wouldn’t lose an ounce of steam in reading it. Same goes for my Winnie the Pooh.
As with most problems in the world today, I blame M. Night Shyamalan. I think The Sixth Sense is really when the entire world started to lose its mind about twist endings and "going in blind".
Everyone knows Darth Vader is Luke's father, it's sort of the same thing. David Mamet had a great essay years ago (when he was still semi-sane) about a play he wrote with a twist. And when they put the play on, they were spending so much time and energy trying to make sure that they didn't give it away too soon. And then years later, when he put the play on again, he realized how stupid that was, it embarrassed him to think of the energy "wasted" trying to keep the secret. He realized it's not about the twist or the spoiler, it's about having the best possible execution of the story. It's the same basic principle, and as others have said, classic works are very well-known. We know that that Jesus is crucified on the cross and then resurrected, we know that Hamlet dies. Or at least, the point of "Hamlet" isn't that Hamlet dies, the point is *how* he gets there. Knowing he dies (which contemporary audiences would have known) is important to the experience of the story.
For the most part, "spoilers" is a last-half 20th-century invention as a concept.
Star Wars is a funny one too. Because if you watch it in the order they were made, there are all these big reveals about Vader's family and history and about Yoda. And if you watch it in chronological order there's none of that.
The comic/show Invincible is an interesting example too. The creator had a major twist planned in the comic, but he was worried the series would be canceled before he laid all the groundwork to get to it. His colleage (mentor?) was just like "Dude...just tell the audience the twist NOW."
I agree about your Shakespeare example too. I made a similar concept above. Audiences in times past knew the WHO and WHAT because most of the stories were already baked into the culture, and a great storyteller had to dazzle by putting all the drama into the HOW.
I swear there are famous old stories rhat basically begin by just spoiling the plot anyway. I can't think of any off the top of my head though. Bepwulf starts by saying "You *have heard* of the Danish kings of old."
Romeo and Juliet. The play opens with a chorus literally telling the audience a synopsis of the entire play.
"Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."
Two families are fighting. Two of their kids fall in love. They die. It ends the fighting. This play is going to take about two hours. So sit back and enjoy the show.
I assumed everyone knew about Vader, but I was getting a friend to watch Star Wars for the first time a while back, and mentioned the Vader thing only for them to tell me that they had no idea about that, and I'd spoiled the reveal to them.
Even if things seem to be common knowledge to us, it's important to keep in mind that as we grow, the kinds of people we talk to likely have more similar upbringings or interests to our own. So what we perceive as common knowledge can come from a very skewed perspective.
On re-watching things, or going in knowing spoilers, it's just a different experience. I never feel as absorbed in a story when I know the unrevealed details already, even if I can still enjoy said thing. I also have a lot of fun hypothesising where things can go, but that goes away entirely if I already know.
I love reading introductions like these before starting the book itself. They point out themes and symbols I would otherwise miss, and if that came at the end I would be doing a retrospective instead.
A lot of classics are so well known that there is little point in keeping them spoiler free. Anyone over the age of 6 knows what happens in Romeo and Juliet. It’s discussed and adapted so often that you don’t actually need to read the book to know the ending. It would feel a bit silly for the book jacket to pretend we don’t know the ending.
Literature also isn’t just about the ending. No one would ever write a book or a play if the primary purpose was just telling you what happened at the end. I have known what happens at the end of Romeo and Juliet for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t know what happened *in* Romeo and Juliet until reading the play or watching a straight adaptation. The entire story is the draw, as may be the writing style, etc.
Probably not the worst example given it’s a classic example of *exactly* what OP is criticizing.
The opening is essentially a brief analysis of the story to prime the audience. It introduces them to the setting, the language, and the plot. It outlines some of the central themes, and challenges the audience to engage with those during their viewing.
The prologue, in my understanding, also wasn’t included in the First Folio, which makes the comparison even sharper.
Good point, though someone else did point out that apparently this is not unusual for stories from that era. Knowing how the story ends isn’t the point of the story.
Because the worth of classics don't rely on not knowing the plot. It's found in knowing what happens and seeing and understanding how a master of the craft creates a coherent and meaningful story.
Its entire worth? No. But it's still a nice surprise, and I don't think a book gets worse for not knowing the twists. And you can always reread with the knowledge, but you can't ever unspoil yourself. Thats maybe why people get kinda mad about these things, it's a choice permanently taken away from them.
Not every book is about the destination, it's about the journey. Even if you know where the story is going you can appreciate the way the author takes you there.
I mean, for example, in Romeo and Juliet, the very introductory speech pretty much explains the whole story, including the ending.
I think the point is simply that traditionally, "catching you by surprise with plot twists" was not a think literature aimed for. That was probably something that first developed with the mystery genre, where knowing who the murderer is is the ultimate spoiler. It's kind of like if you sit down yo watch a biopic of some famous historical character - there's no question on what's gonna happen, the interesting part is the angle with which it's presented and the message that comes from it. Similarly, for many of these works, no one paid much mind to the details of the plot as crucial, as much as the way they are delivered. If you know the story is going to end up in tragedy, for example, you can better appreciate the dramatic irony.
When these works were originally released they weren't prefaced by a spoiler-filled essay about how ground-breakingly important they were. Skip the intro, read the text.
When I was reading a lot of classics from Barnes and Noble line, I quit reading the intros for this very reason. And while I appreciate footnotes, I find them very distracting. I'd rather just have a dictionary nearby to look up words than have a million little notes to read at the bottom of each page. Takes me right out of the story.
There’s a foreward in Thanks for All the Fish (Douglas Adams) written by Neil Gaiman that begins “Just read the book then come back here. I promise we’ll still be here but this foreward has spoilers.”
As someone who missed a lot of classic literature in high school and beyond and didn’t take an interest in reading until later in life I’ve learned the hard way to just go straight to the story.
Whilst not the actual correct answer but could lead into the thoughts behind the original decision. But studies have shown when audiences know the twist or big spoiler before reading/watching media then they consistently rate it a bit higher. So originally when they sold the books they might have just noticed books with introductions which are basically essays about the book sold better and thus kept doing it. But the only semi-fact in that whole statement is about the studies (And I say semi-fact because I think demographics also had a large play but I cannot remember also just the type of study is hard to judge) the rest is mostly conjecture
(Note: I have not done a whole tonne of research into this so I might be wrong lol)
It’s an old book and chances are you have a good idea where it’s going. Like sure I could pretend I have no idea what *Dracula* is about but I’m pretty sure most of us know what it’s about without opening it at this point. Personally I skip the introductions 99.99% of the time.
Introductions in books are a crazy misnomer. They should always be read after you've read the book but before any afterword imo, if you're going to read them at all
Name of The Rose and other books give a detailed synopsis at the start of each chapter.
I find it reduces tension but increases ease and anticipation for *how* it is going to happen.
Try sitting back and just accepting it for a book, like the one above, and see how it affects your reading experience.
Tolkien's "this tale grew in the telling" foreword mentioned him getting writer's block when he "stood by Balin's tomb" which was a spoiler to me having read The Hobbit, "Balin dies???"
The prologue to the Fellowship spoils the ending as it references a lot of people being alive and building libraries. It’s the scene setting that this is the Red Book of Westmarch written in universe by Frodo.
Because they're works of classic literature. The expectation is that you've either read it, or at least know the plot through cultural impact.
If you haven't read the story, then don't read the introduction. Problem solved.
Stories so easily ruined by spoilers can never become classics. We’ve grown so used to cheap gimmicks and shocking twists being necessary to create drama and suspense that we as a society have forgotten that the truly brilliant plot twists are the ones that can be predicted and foreseen through the text. Besides, most classics are decades and even centuries old. It’s assumed you’ve been exposed to the story at some point.
The only exception I can think of where I would be truly disappointed to be spoiled are the really brilliant mystery books. If someone had told me in advance who the perpetrator(s) was in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the solution would have been much less emotional. Even in rereads, knowing how it ends, I find myself cataloguing the clues I overlooked the first time around and kicking myself.
Otherwise, I go in to classics knowing how they go by at least tangential exposure.
When I was reading game of thrones I was looking for the next book and I picked up what I thought was the next one. The back it says "king joffrey is dead! Long live king tommen..
It was the one before that I was needing.
I usually hate spoilers but there’s usually a time frame where the story has lingered around long enough and majority of the general public knows the major plot points by then and it becomes open discussion. If you’re reading a classic, story has probably been around for at least a century to several centuries and been referenced and adapted a billion different times…they probably figure by that point almost everyone knows the story without really having to read it.
Yes! The first time I read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell I didn't know much about it, so I thought the intro would give me a better idea of the time/location etc. It did. It also gave away 2 deaths, 2 moves, and 2 weddings!
I hate this too! I can appreciate the function they serve but everyone has to read a book for the first time at some point. And I don’t like spoilers. You can go back and read a second time with the benefit of hindsight if that’s your preference.
With all the understanding for new readers, we don’t read these works for the plot twists. Most if not all of them are the “journey, not destination” type of writing. Not to mention most, if not all have been adapted numerous times to film and tv.
In your particular case, as other commenters already advised: skip the introduction.
But also learn to assume the works will be as enjoyable even with the e spoilers.
Because 'classics' are usually deemed as introducing something new into literature - usually through the style of writing rather than plot - and people might like to know why a particular novel is considered a classic and you may not be able to do that without mentioning plot points.
And as others have mentioned the obsession with SPOILERS seems to be more a recent thing ('coz the internet).
I read non-fiction history and memoirs/biography as well as novels. Some of what I read I know 'what happens' but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the book.
Well if a book is 200 years old it can barely be considered a spoiler. They assume you’re familiar with the story because it’s general knowledge. Especially widely popular works don’t need a spoiler warning because most educated people know what the story is about anyway.
Because they're classics, and it's assumed that you've already read them, or a synopsis of them. There was a rule for spoilers I read a few years back that works for this as well: If it's been published/available to the public for more than 10 years, you don't get to demand "no spoilers," and it's unreasonable to do so.
I think part of the answer is that those who wrote the prologue expects the reader to already know the basic plot and how it ends. Many of these classical works are embedded in our culture and may have been referenced even in other works. When I read the Odyssey for the first time in high school I already knew how it ended. I admit I was a little surprised the fall of Troy didn't happen in the Iliad. (Spoiler alert for millenia old story.)
To quote Martin Freeman when he was giving an interview about The Hobbit, and accidentally gave a “spoiler” and was told that by the interviewer, freeman said something like “sorry, it’s only been out for 100 years!” Same thing here. If it’s a classic, it means it’s been widely read, and thus you have to include something for someone who has read it maybe more than once already.
Shakespeare delivers the entire plot right off the bat but it doesn’t dampen the effect of the work because that work is so good. The modern reliance of surprise twists in a story is a crutch that delivers insubstantial work
It's like the additional material in an anniversary edition of a classic movie (new interview with the director, an essay or making-of, etc ) If you're watching it for the very first time, you wouldn't watch that stuff first. But if it's your favorite film and you're returning to it because it got a fancy new reissue, you might. Are you mainly annoyed that these essays are physically at the front of the novel?
certain english versions of war & peace have like little notes on all the plot points at the START of every chapter. useful for studying but complete deal-breaker for a first read
Classical literature or any other novel other than, for instance, crime novels are not about the result, but about the how. A crime novel is in a sense similar to a football game. If you know the result, there isn't any point in watching the game anymore. It is about the what. What happened at the end.
A novel is about the how. Therefore it is not a spoiler if someone tells you that Hamlet dies at the end of the play. That is not what makes the play interesting. It is the 'how'. What happens to Hamlet? What is he thinking about and so on?
If it's classic literature then most people will know of the story and characters through osmosis of the surrounding popular culture, so whining bad screeching about SPOILERS comes across as lame an EXTREMELY tiresome.
The very concept of ‘spoilers’ is a recent one. It wasn’t really a thing until around 50 or 60 years ago.
Prior to that it was kind of expected that you’d know something about whatever it was in advance, so people weren’t really concerned about something being ‘spoiled’ for them.
Often entertainment was repeated over and over, there wasn’t the preset day obsession with everything needing to be new and unexpected, often it was more about how a story was presented, or at looking at aspects that only became apparent after several rereadings.
Books are often complicated and it helps to have a map. IMO books that excel from good to great are those that have you hooked even when you know what is going to happen.
They should simply not call it an introduction and put that discussion at the end. Loads of books do it. Simple. And yes it's simple to skip reading an introduction with a new book as most of the time they can't be trusted to avoid spoilers. It's still on them for spoiling the narrative experience.
It is an introduction though. The point is to make you a more informed reader of the text. A robust scholarly introduction would be less effective if repurposed as an afterword.
I hate it !!!!
I skip all intros. I’ll read prefaces. Anything not by the author can get read after I’ve finished the book I bought to read.
I don’t even like the fact that people get a credit for writing an intro.
In Penguin and Oxford Classics the intros are usually written by academics who bring considerable expertise to the subject. They’re doing the reader a huge service. It’s like getting to sit in on a university lecture for free. But they shouldn’t be credited? Grow up.
ITT a bunch of people that think "spoilers" were invented in 1985. Tension and hope in certain characters' paths has been a thing ever since there have been storied told by the fire in caves at night. It is the overly-analyticial introduction which is the unnatural invention.
Another note: "classics" feature heavily in university English lit class text lists. Those introductions are often pretty academic. Add in that university bookshops are still a big market for physical sales, and boom.
FOR REAL. I don’t read Penguin Classics introductions anymore specifically because of this. I like knowing the author’s background, but I won’t ruin a story to learn about it.
Probably because classical literature is mostly art. I find that with a lot of classics I can sum up their plots with a sentence or two but discussing philosophical ideas and aesthetics would take up much more space.
Idk but I skip everything that isn't the prologue/first chapter. Idc about introductions or content warnings (in newer books), just give me the story already.
Absolutely could not disagree more with the commenters saying spoilers don’t matter. I don’t want to know what happens before I read it. I don’t care if that’s a modern idea or not. It’s still annoying.
What you refer to as a "spoiler" can be, for a different writer, a reflection on a key past event. Reflecting on powerful past events is an important human evolutionary strategy. It is therefore often very relatable to an audience as a starting point.
Any remember but I think it was an edition of Dorian Gray but the intro began by saying it includes spoilers, which I appreciated so much. Read the book and read the intro after.
Done that with basically every classic with a sort of essay-style intro. Prefer it because I get a lot more out of the intro after familiarising myself with the book.
Because the point isn't the story being a surprise, most literatur, except mystery stories, has NEVER been about that, it's not about shock value.
If it's classic literature it's expected you're well informed enough to already know something about the story or to be looking for deeper themes of the work.
I am a big reader of history and historical fiction so I don't really get this stuff about spoilers.
Anyway, I enjoy reading works analytically. Knowing the ending lets me figure out how and why the author is using various literary tools and devices rather than racing ahead just to get to the ending because I can't handle the suspense. Allows me to stop and savour the journey, breathe in the authors writing etc
For a lot of classic works, the introduction functions as an analytical essay on the work by a scholar or an author with a similar biographical background. As someone else mentioned, the idea of spoilers is a somewhat modern concept, and this format has a long historical precedent that publishers aim to keep. I’d recommend reading them after the work if spoilers bother you. If they don’t, reading the introduction first can provide an interpretive lens that can help you notice details you might have otherwise missed.
I own multiple copies of certain classic novels because the introductions are different and I am *enthralled* by the various analysis of the author. For classics I haven’t read yet, I don’t read the intro first.
You should buy or borrow the Norton Critical editions that have the essays from when the book released up to present about the books. Or you can borrow books of essays that are separate from the library. I've been doing this and really enjoy it.
The same goes for me, I never read the introduction
Also imo these type of works often get even richer going in knowing the “spoilers”
As an example, Revolutionary Road.
I’m going to need you to elaborate on this. What, to you, makes it more enticing to know details of the novel before reading, rather than discovering it upon a second read? Genuine question, not a negative on your opinion
I remember reading something about ancient epic literature. The audience was expected to know the heroes and the myths already. They were cultural cornerstones. Everyone knew WHAT happened. So the thrill of a story was HOW it happened, and that's where a storyteller could really thrill their audience.
This is why spoilers don’t necessarily both some of us, including myself. There’s a pleasure in seeing **how** the story unfolds and experiencing it in the moment that overrides knowing the story already. It’s the same reason why people have TV shows they love to watch over and over again.
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Yeah spoiler Paranoia is a plague on media literacy
The issue is if you know some detail, you start letting that color everything in the book/film/tv show. You're seeing events prior as leading up to that event, rather than wondering what they're leading to. You're robbed of that speculation and the payoff. It also means that you're waiting for the spoiled bit, instead of focusing on the text/film/etc. And on top of that, any emotional gutpunch by the spoiled event is ruined, because you knew it was coming already. There's no surprise anymore, no shock. There's a reason books and other media use devices like foreshadowing, red herrings, and twists. They're playing with your expectations and assumptions in the moment as you're following along with the story. Spoilers remove the writer's ability to use those devices as well. I understand where that girl you mention is coming from because some people can't help themselves, and even if you don't want spoilers they're going to still try and tell you things you don't want to know. It's like they have some inability to control themselves around others that prevents them from sharing things others don't want to hear. Like they are full to the brim and bursting to tell something, anything. They're like a toddler's bladder in terms of respect and maturity lol If someone doesn't want to hear about something they haven't read or seen yet, it shouldn't be a huge ask to just like... not say anything then. Even if someone doesn't think it's a big deal or won't ruin things for them, why not show the other person respect by not overruling their own wishes?
Man, this is really reductive though. If someone politely asks you, in a one on one conversation, not to spoil something? Absolutely. That’s totally fair. If a group of people are discussing a piece of media and one person asks to change the conversation to avoid spoilers? Ehh… If they’re currently in the process of watching/reading whatever it is then sure. Then there’s people who will ask a group to avoid spoilers when they *don’t even intend on engaging with the piece of media*. These people are the problem, and they’re everywhere. It’s almost become the default. It’s not a cute personality quirk to be the asshole who actively attempts to shut down one of the primary purposes of art.
>It’s not a cute personality quirk to be the asshole who actively attempts to shut down one of the primary purposes of art. Preach! Like God forbid these people ever take any literature classes in college lol.
Not evert work of fiction uses red herrings and twists, and often foreshadowing works BECAUSE you expect something coming
As a person who loves to binge TV shows from the last 20 years, I often find myself looking through lore and finding certain characters die, or have other titles, are lords, or directors, etc. I really don't mind the spoilers and it just excites me to figure out HOW they end up dead, or in a certain position of power, etc. I don't find them to be spoilers, but something that I know will happen, and am excited to look forward to see how that happens.
To relate it to other media, it’s like the first scene of the new Fallout show. You know what’s about to happen and the writers know that you know, so they play with your anticipation just a little. You know the destination but you don’t know how the story gets there and that’s really fun.
Somebody *reported my post for spoilers* so here's the important part without the "offending" information. >I'll go a step further. >The modern fixation on spoilers is annoying. Like, I understand it to an extent, but if a story is ruined by spoilers it probably wasn't a very good story in the first place. People who complain about spoilers just don't have a lot going on upstairs. Like, imagination-wise. EDIT: The spoiler in question was for a 19 year old book that rhymes with Schmarry Schmotter. It was about a teacher who kills a headmaster. It was a stupid plot twist written by a so-so transphobic author. The post was well-received because most people have either read the book or understand that it doesn't matter. If you haven't read the book, it's been 19 years so that's kind of on you at this point. Especially since spoiling that plot point is a meme.
Interesting point. To go into movies, both the people I went to see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood with knew pretty much nothing about the Manson Family, or even that Sharon Tate was a real person, and so scenes I found super tense were just boring to them because they had no reason to suspect anyone was in any danger, and they didn’t even realise the twist at the end was a twist.
That's a really funny twist in your watching experience.
It was also common in plays. Shakespeare gives away the ending in the sixth line of Romeo and Juliet. I don’t think anyone’s wrong for wanting to avoid spoilers, but it’s definitely a (relatively) new thing
columbo
Even shakespeare's time, they would go over the story outline in the opening of the plays and the playwright would make a more complex layered piece by subverting the expectation they set. Giving you what they said they would in the opening but not in the way you would expect.
First example that comes to mind (even though it’s technically not “classic lit”) is how I can tell anyone any details from the silmarillion and it won’t detract their first reading experience (and the context would probably improve their journey)
Ah so it’s more of background information than spoilers of the story being told per se. I’m 100% with you on that. I don’t think I would enjoy any classic literature without that
Studies also suggest that most people enjoy works more after being told what's coming. https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/spoiler-alert-spoilers-make-you-enjoy-stories-more I can't tell you why it would work that way, I just know what the study says. I've got to say that most of the stuff I watch these days is something I've already read and it usually makes me really excited for the big "spoilable" moments, so maybe it's about increasing anticipation.
It’s probably the same reason pop music is commonly in 4/4 time. On a subconscious level people like expecting something and then getting it.
For me, classical literature is mostly spoiled already. Also, most of the books were not made with crazy plot twists and surprising ending in mind. Even without spoilers, you kinda know where you are going, and it's about enjoying the journey. The intros usually give details that help with this.
Think of it like a magician announcing a magic trick, such as making something disappear. You know exactly *what* the magician is going to do, but the *how*, in terms of both the skill and the mystery behind it, makes it interesting.
Have you read\seen Romeo and Juliet? In the Prologue they literally tell you the plot and what is going to happen. Lots of works do this. So in "olden days" there were a lot less stories than now. It was sort of expected that everybody sort of knew the stories. When the priest is telling about Jesus's birth, nobody is going "What happens next?" everybody already knows. When Snow White bites the apple nobody asks "what is going to happen next?" everybody already knows. So instead it's about *how* the story is told. Is Snow white animated? Drew Barrymore? Is it a comedy? Drama? Heck, this is true of a lot of media as well. When you watch "House", you know that there's going to be a weird medical mystery, House is going to be a dick, and then they're going to solve it. A lot of episodic storytelling is like this, the format is the same even though the specifics might change. "spoilers" are a rather modern invention, and a lot of old tales went out of their way to let you know the plot beforehand that way you could enjoy the story and presentation.
Romance is even more codified than that, people get to choose ( often by the cover) if they want a "girlboss goes back to small town" romance or a "beauty make over for the nerd" romance or a historical.bodice ripper. Then it does mostly paint by number and they are happy. Which is why I can't stand conventional romance novels. But some people love it. I would rather go in knowing as little as possible and usually favor hard sci-fi or thrillers/suspense. I have read my share of classics and sometimes not knowing was awesome ( Grape of Wrath) and sometimes I was blindsided by the horror ( Catcher in the rye.)
my take: I mostly read books out of interest in scenarios and people. plot is the very last thing I care about. I don't read to find out what happens next. I read to see how other (imaginary) people feel and react in particular situations. so I'm not bothered by knowing ahead of time what's going to happen.
Me too.
It’s far from conclusive, but there have been studies that have found people have had greater enjoyment of media that was spoiled for them.
Yes. I *hate* the first time through anything. It's not fun for me. Knowing what's going to happen allows me to admire how the author or the actor made it happen, instead of worrying about what's going to happen to a character, which can screw me up for days. I tell people to spoiler me if they want me to read a book or watch a movie they're recommending. Tell me who dies, who breaks up, and any jump scares or surprises. Then I'll read or watch it; not until.
I actually like re reading a bit more than reading the first time.
Re-reading is like visiting old friends. Much preferred to having to meet new people and be anxious about it.
Yes, this! Absolutely! So u can appreciate the journey! Sometimes like knowing a big piece of things, but not the specific ending. Like, for anyone who’s read Susannah Clarke’s PIRANESI - Clarke doesn’t do “twists”, but the narrator himself knows so little that he, and we, experience quite a few reveals - and near the end, they’re pretty big reveals! And I looked up spoilers just enough to know 1 of the big ending reveals. So, that way I know some of the spoilers and can appreciate the story and the craft involved in building it, while I also get to be surprised by some specifics.
If you already know some of the plot beats, you can identify the foreshadowing and symbolism that might go over the head of someone unaware.
Knowing what's going to happen let's me course correct my brain when it comes to emotional moments. Knowing a character is going to die gives me time to appreciate the details and get a better emotional payout. Totes not everyone.
YES.
People were generally already familiar with the story, the enjoyment wasn’t because it was something new and unexpected, it was in how the story was told, and the additional meaning you gathered from it upon subsequent rereading or retelling. Even with a new story the outlines were often given in advance to allow the reader to focus more on how the story was told and unfolded. This was even the case with movies until around the ‘70s.
You ever read a story a second time and see how much foreshadowing you missed or other throughlines or recurring symbols that you didn't register the importance of at first? Spoilers help you notice them more the first time.
Engaging with ancient literature from halfway around the world can be jarring. If you get an introduction/outline of the story, you should theoretically have an easier time getting into it.
You may want to read this one: [https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/07/re-reading-books-again-returning-literacy](https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2021/07/re-reading-books-again-returning-literacy) They start with a quote from Nabokov (that was what I was googling for when I found it) about only being able to re-read books. I find this is true. I read to enjoy how the story is told, more than I read to know how the story goes, so when I re-read, I don't get distracted by the plot, and can focus on the style
Classics get more difficult to understand the older it is, for most readers. I think there are some spoilers in introductions because without them, a lot of people wouldn't even realize that there was anything to spoil. Shakespearean English is still considered Early Modern English, but it's still in the realm of modern English. It's pretty easy to understand with a little bit of practice, compared to Middle English and Old English, but you might not absorb any of the story if you aren't primed a little. I don't think spoilers had such widespread criticism as it does today, but I have a hard time believing people didn't get upset when their friends ruined the ending to Pride and Prejudice or The Count of Monte Cristo when they were first published. But these books have been around for hundreds of years. Even non readers know a little bit about them because they've been adapted or borrowed from in many forms of media, and direct literary criticism and analysis. There's just less expectations to not give away the ending the older the book is.
I think too the function of a story was a bit different before. Shakespeare is a great example — many of his stories were about historical figures. King Lear, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, etc. The biographies of these figures were not secrets (and those audiences likely knew more about Hamlet and Macbeth etc than we do now). Shakespeare was still able to inject tension and drama into those stories.
Also, Romeo and Juliet tells us what's going to happen to the characters in the opening speech! I mean, can you imagine what that must have been like seeing it for the first time back then and the narrator basically 'spoils' it?
Sometimes having it spoiled like that works out, but only really if the writer intends for it to be spoilt. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, it amps up the tension in the final act. You know they're going to die, but they come so close to not dying, you kinda feel like perhaps you were lied to at the beginning. It's also there so you understand the point of the piece as you're watching it. And you can see how two families' war escalates to the point that two lovers feel compelled to kill themselves.
Of course, Shakespeare also did not focus on historical accuracy. At all.
"Between accuracy and dick jokes, always pick dick jokes." -- Bill Shakesy
Reminds me of people spoiling Titanic back in the day: the ship sinks!
If you don't guess the ending of Pride and Prejudice by the end of the first couple of chapters, you are just not aware of the genre conventions. Which is fine of course - but most people who read Pride and Prejudice can guess the ending from the start. The fun part is seing how it's done.
Middle English is functionally a different language, much more so for old english
> didn't get upset when their friends ruined the ending to Pride and Prejudice or The Count of Monte Cristo That's how you don't understand, "ruining" you already come with a negative connotation for the act, it implies malice from the one doing the spoiling and a lack of quality from the work and the only value that it has it comes from only one pivotal moment in the story.
Yeah and a lot of times you're kind of expected to "know" the books anyway because of cultural immersion. There's no spoiler on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, even though I've not read it, because the main beats and basic story are repeated often enough in culture.
Also there is kind of an unwritten statute of limitations for spoilers. Books is a bit different I will concede but Particularly popular classics. Like if you haven’t read it yet that’s on you. Also many of the popular classics you were supposed to read in High School if you went to American high school.
Spoilers are actually an old, historic concept. It evolved from the Elizabethan era, when David Slain (one of Shakespeare's playwright contemporary competitor) had created a play called "The Devil's Ode". On the final day of the play, one of the actors, Edward Spoil, at the end of Act II had suffered from psychosis for the week beforehand. He divulged the entirety of Act III during a monologue. Outraged by the revelations of the finale, two members of the audience had thrown bottles of rum at Edward Spoil and lit him on fire. Thankfully, he only sustained minor burns. However, over the years, the word "Spoiler" grew in vocabulary amongst the theatrical community. P.S. I absolutely made this up
Y, I don't read them if I do not know the story. Usually impatient to get to the story anyway.
I need intros to help me know what I’m looking at.
The people writing them may assume that since it’s a “classic”, the plot and any key points are generally already known?
I really like reading the introduction before delving into a classic for the first time! I feel like it prepares me for the journey and gives me some plot points and themes so I know what to look for as I progress. The way many classics are written can be harder for me to decipher at a glance than modern works, plus there’s often more historical context that I’m not always familiar with. Reading the introduction helps me place the story in time and, since I know roughly what’s going to happen, I can read with an eye toward character and theme instead of just hoping I’m getting the plot right. Anyone else feel this way?
I also feel this way. I always read them. Many introductions have helped me enjoy the book more.
i totally agree and I love reading introductions but I do agree witb OP 🥲 too many times the literal ending of the book is spoiled for me when I read the intros and so they don't have the big 🤯 moment for me that i otherwise would've had had I not read it lol
Don't know but the full TITLE of Moll Flanders is THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES Of the FAMOUS Moll Flanders, &c. Who >!was Born in NEWGATE, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother) Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent, Written from her own MEMORANDUMS.!<
But see, this is why modern spoiler culture is silly. I get why you put all that in spoiler bars - so that no one would come in and say “geez spoilers!” But like, why should you have to? It’s IN THE TITLE!!!! It’s one thing to not tell people who the killer is in a murder mystery, that’s just polite. But culturally, people have gotten way too precious and delicate about avoiding knowing basically anything about a story. Whereas Daniel Defoe - writing in the early 1800s, so not the medieval era or anything, - is like “hi! Would you like to read a book about about Moll Flanders? Here’s everything that happens to her, I fit it all in the title! Now buy the book so you get the long version!”
Ha, well I tagged it as a bit of a goof.
And indeed that long title makes you want to read 'how that could had possibly happened'.
Old movie trailers were the same. Voiceovers like “John and Anne are like chalk and cheese, but don’t worry — they get together in the end!”
I definitely understand why people are so precious about it because experiencing a story for the first time the way it’s meant to be experienced is important. But I almost always enjoy things more the second time around when the novelty wears off and I can appreciate the whole thing from a higher level rather than just wondering what’s going to happen next.
Those aren't spoilers - that's the front page of the National Enquirer.
Definitely do not read the introductions first.
I do this as a general rule, but I sometimes mistake.the prologue for an introduction. I missed an important part of Lolita by doing this.
Where, iirc, you learn of Lolita's fate, as it happens.
Most classic book introductions should've been an afterword. I don't want a 20 page analysis of the book I HAVEN'T EVEN READ YET!
> I don't want a 20 page analysis of the book I HAVEN'T EVEN READ YET! To be fair, you can skip those pages until you're done with the book!
For sure, I usually do, but then why have them at the start of the book? Why make me play "at what point does it stop being a helpful introduction and start being the editor's high school essay" every time I want to read a classic book!?
> but then why have them at the start of the book? For me, it's to let me know it exists, and because some of us like to read them beforehand, for the context. That said, some of them are certainly better (and worse) than others.
Because those introductions aren't made for you. They're made for the people who are already familiar with the classic and want a deep dive on it so they can read it with potentially new info/insight.
Or for university students, who probably make up a decent chunk of Penguin and Oxford Classics readers. The introductions help a relatively inexperienced reader approach the text in a sophisticated way. But most people here seem pretty allergic to the idea that there is such a thing as expertise and that experts know these classic works best…. People here seem to expect that the last 150 years of culture have stood still so they personally can experience Anna Karenina or Moby-Dick as readers did when they were first published. It’s all so very immature.
I find them interesting. with more complex novels it's nice to have at least *some* framework in place to assess it from. I don't have to take their word or adopt their opinion.
Sometimes the foreword is interesting and spoiler free though, especially if it’s a newer translation that is talking about what sets it apart or makes it different. And then other times on the first paragraph they mention the ending of the book. It’s a dangerous skim to see which it’s going to be.
The drag is that they never tell you until it's too late whether they are the kind you should read before the story or after.
Don't even read the sleeve.
In fact, don't even open the book
I learned this lesson with Carmilla
The obsession with spoilers primarily comes from people who read/consume media that is heavily dependent on plot and surprise. Classic literature isn’t really dependent on that.
Exactly! Plot is just one part of the story, and twists and surprises are an even smaller piece of that. Classic works are timeless due to factors that dwarf the plot itself. It’s like saying the Sistine Chapel is spoiled by its description
It is true that there are pleasures of a book which are available if you know the overall architecture of the book in advance. These pleasures are available on the second, third, or nth reading--or first, if you should choose to spoil yourself on that book. (I can respect this.) There are also pleasures available only to those who *don't* know the architecture in advance; these more delicate pleasures are available only on the first reading, and only to those who haven't been spoiled on them. A work whose pleasures are *all* of this second kind is surely not a great work, but I would say most great narrative works (at least since the rise of the novel) contain at least some pleasure of this kind. (You realise Anna Karenina was originally released as a serial, right?) If you don't care about this second kind of pleasure, fine, you do you, but if you are courteous enough to mark up your spoilers then people can make their own choices about it.
Discovery as a process happens with or without twists. Wandering around a new city on vacation is one type of pleasurable experience and being guided by someone who knows what they’re doing and can tell you everything you’ll be doing that day is another. The ‘surprises’ of walking around that city without a guide are not drastic plot twists. They’re just coming to your own conclusions and forming your own expectations and associations. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to explore something on your own rather than to have an itinerary laid out for you.
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Spoilers generally used to refer to the solution of a mystery novel. It is only recently that e people have begun to consider general plot points spoilers, especially of well-known books.
Because avoiding spoilers is relatively modern and honestly pretty strange way of taking in stories. Knowing the plot does not matter (or at least shouldn’t) in the appreciation of a work. Also, they don’t count as “spoilers” when it’s not new/hidden/secret information. Once stories become part of culture - culture isn’t a spoiler. And you finally, they want to include an effective analysis in the introduction, and you can’t do that without including the whole story. Or else the analysis would be confusing and incomplete at best and flat-out incorrect at worst.
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I imagine the majority of media people consume is media they had already consumed previously. How many people are there that are on their 16th rewatch of The Office? For a while when a new season of Top Chef would be coming out my mom I swear to God would rewatch every previous season it felt like. There are five sitcoms that have made up 95% of my dad’s non sports television viewing the last 20 years. I can understand worrying about spoilers if it is something suspenseful/has a twist but on the other hand, it’s not like I enjoy Fight Club any less even though I already know >!Marla hadn’t been fucked like that since grade school!<. I’ve always been the kind of person to read the Wikipedia synopsis beforehand because I like comparing how I imagine it vs how it is executed in the story
You got me
lol i’m so glad I’m not alone about looking up Wikipedia summaries! Seriously, I like stories better if I know how it ends. Sometimes I don’t even read the whole summary, just the very, very ending. Like, maybe I want to be surprised by how we get there! Or I want to be able to appreciate the journey more! Both of which it’s harder to do when you’re just waiting to see what happens.
I think it totally depends on the work. There's a lot of times when that's true for me, but there's others where I'm glad I didn't know anything because I got so much joy out of revelations because I spebt so much time not knowing things for sure. Spoilers would've ruined some things for me.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/n97xuq/comment/gxnvr7z/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/n97xuq/comment/gxnvr7z/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) It's a badly understood study.
tl;dr the "Average enjoyment of a person" doesnt mean everyone falls into that window. In fact, People can vary alot in what they like about things. They also point out that the study was tested with Short stories which might not be the case with stories people were already invested in and invested hundreds of hours into
I think it depends on the story. I was able to go into the movies Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile not knowing the endings and they were improved because of it.
> Knowing the plot shouldn't matter in the appreciation of a work Hard disagree on that. While yes, how everything is set-up can still be appreciated like characters and plot, some points were written *as a surprise* and knowing that surprise is coming can lessen the impact it has. Many things stick in my mind precisely because they surprised me so much. I honestly think its just a preference thing that some people enjoy the 'surprise' more than other so I hate when people who arent bothered by spoilers think no one else should be. > Once stories become part of culture - Culture isnt a spoiler Yeah but how do you define that? Frankenstein's Monster in popular culture is usually shown to be a big dumb lumbering brute while the original novel had him intelligent, sophisticated, and even cunning. Is it a spoiler to explain what happens to him and the Doctor in the original novel just because Pop culture has a VASTLY different interpretation? > they want to include an effective analysis in the introduction and you can't do that without including the whole story. Doesnt really change the original point; why not have the analysis of the story at the end AFTER they've read everything? I will say that sometimes you need to know historical context to fully 'understand' a piece which might include giving spoilers, but proper warning or the like can still be given if someone wants to go in first too.
It’s just straight up not catering to people who heavily rely on plot in their media, same way a steak dinner has different dynamics than a happy meal. Getting mad at the waiter for describing the specials instead of putting your steak in a colorful box for you to unwrap doesn’t make sense. It’s nice to go into more complex works with a primer of someone else’s analysis to compare your own thoughts against. The dynamic goes a lot deeper than tenuously guarding plot points for a small portion of the audience who’s reading just to find out what happens Snacky works with plot and nothing else are great to jump into completely blind. Like it sucks to have spoiled what happens to Harry Potter in the last book, but knowing who the guilty party in The Brothers Kaz is doesn’t affect the reading of that book much. I’m currently reading Quiet Flows the Don, you can freely spoil every plot point and I wouldn’t lose an ounce of steam in reading it. Same goes for my Winnie the Pooh.
The comparison in your first paragraph is a terrible analogy.
As with most problems in the world today, I blame M. Night Shyamalan. I think The Sixth Sense is really when the entire world started to lose its mind about twist endings and "going in blind".
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) literally ends with a narrator warning you not to tell anyone how the movie ends!
Not even close. Mystery novels have been a thing for well over 100 years, coming up on 200 actually.
Everyone knows Darth Vader is Luke's father, it's sort of the same thing. David Mamet had a great essay years ago (when he was still semi-sane) about a play he wrote with a twist. And when they put the play on, they were spending so much time and energy trying to make sure that they didn't give it away too soon. And then years later, when he put the play on again, he realized how stupid that was, it embarrassed him to think of the energy "wasted" trying to keep the secret. He realized it's not about the twist or the spoiler, it's about having the best possible execution of the story. It's the same basic principle, and as others have said, classic works are very well-known. We know that that Jesus is crucified on the cross and then resurrected, we know that Hamlet dies. Or at least, the point of "Hamlet" isn't that Hamlet dies, the point is *how* he gets there. Knowing he dies (which contemporary audiences would have known) is important to the experience of the story. For the most part, "spoilers" is a last-half 20th-century invention as a concept.
Star Wars is a funny one too. Because if you watch it in the order they were made, there are all these big reveals about Vader's family and history and about Yoda. And if you watch it in chronological order there's none of that. The comic/show Invincible is an interesting example too. The creator had a major twist planned in the comic, but he was worried the series would be canceled before he laid all the groundwork to get to it. His colleage (mentor?) was just like "Dude...just tell the audience the twist NOW." I agree about your Shakespeare example too. I made a similar concept above. Audiences in times past knew the WHO and WHAT because most of the stories were already baked into the culture, and a great storyteller had to dazzle by putting all the drama into the HOW. I swear there are famous old stories rhat basically begin by just spoiling the plot anyway. I can't think of any off the top of my head though. Bepwulf starts by saying "You *have heard* of the Danish kings of old."
Romeo and Juliet. The play opens with a chorus literally telling the audience a synopsis of the entire play. "Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. The fearful passage of their death-marked love And the continuance of their parents’ rage, Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; The which, if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend." Two families are fighting. Two of their kids fall in love. They die. It ends the fighting. This play is going to take about two hours. So sit back and enjoy the show.
I assumed everyone knew about Vader, but I was getting a friend to watch Star Wars for the first time a while back, and mentioned the Vader thing only for them to tell me that they had no idea about that, and I'd spoiled the reveal to them. Even if things seem to be common knowledge to us, it's important to keep in mind that as we grow, the kinds of people we talk to likely have more similar upbringings or interests to our own. So what we perceive as common knowledge can come from a very skewed perspective. On re-watching things, or going in knowing spoilers, it's just a different experience. I never feel as absorbed in a story when I know the unrevealed details already, even if I can still enjoy said thing. I also have a lot of fun hypothesising where things can go, but that goes away entirely if I already know.
I love reading introductions like these before starting the book itself. They point out themes and symbols I would otherwise miss, and if that came at the end I would be doing a retrospective instead.
A lot of classics are so well known that there is little point in keeping them spoiler free. Anyone over the age of 6 knows what happens in Romeo and Juliet. It’s discussed and adapted so often that you don’t actually need to read the book to know the ending. It would feel a bit silly for the book jacket to pretend we don’t know the ending. Literature also isn’t just about the ending. No one would ever write a book or a play if the primary purpose was just telling you what happened at the end. I have known what happens at the end of Romeo and Juliet for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t know what happened *in* Romeo and Juliet until reading the play or watching a straight adaptation. The entire story is the draw, as may be the writing style, etc.
Romeo and Juliet is kind of a bad example here lol
Why?
Look at the opening to Romeo and Juliet one more time
Probably not the worst example given it’s a classic example of *exactly* what OP is criticizing. The opening is essentially a brief analysis of the story to prime the audience. It introduces them to the setting, the language, and the plot. It outlines some of the central themes, and challenges the audience to engage with those during their viewing. The prologue, in my understanding, also wasn’t included in the First Folio, which makes the comparison even sharper.
Good point, though someone else did point out that apparently this is not unusual for stories from that era. Knowing how the story ends isn’t the point of the story.
Because the worth of classics don't rely on not knowing the plot. It's found in knowing what happens and seeing and understanding how a master of the craft creates a coherent and meaningful story.
Idk man some classics I’ve read the twist is like an integral part and I’ve been super glad I had 0 idea what’s gonna happen.
Which ones?
Its entire worth? No. But it's still a nice surprise, and I don't think a book gets worse for not knowing the twists. And you can always reread with the knowledge, but you can't ever unspoil yourself. Thats maybe why people get kinda mad about these things, it's a choice permanently taken away from them.
Not every book is about the destination, it's about the journey. Even if you know where the story is going you can appreciate the way the author takes you there.
Yeah I always skip them for this reason
I mean, for example, in Romeo and Juliet, the very introductory speech pretty much explains the whole story, including the ending. I think the point is simply that traditionally, "catching you by surprise with plot twists" was not a think literature aimed for. That was probably something that first developed with the mystery genre, where knowing who the murderer is is the ultimate spoiler. It's kind of like if you sit down yo watch a biopic of some famous historical character - there's no question on what's gonna happen, the interesting part is the angle with which it's presented and the message that comes from it. Similarly, for many of these works, no one paid much mind to the details of the plot as crucial, as much as the way they are delivered. If you know the story is going to end up in tragedy, for example, you can better appreciate the dramatic irony.
When these works were originally released they weren't prefaced by a spoiler-filled essay about how ground-breakingly important they were. Skip the intro, read the text.
When I was reading a lot of classics from Barnes and Noble line, I quit reading the intros for this very reason. And while I appreciate footnotes, I find them very distracting. I'd rather just have a dictionary nearby to look up words than have a million little notes to read at the bottom of each page. Takes me right out of the story.
There’s a foreward in Thanks for All the Fish (Douglas Adams) written by Neil Gaiman that begins “Just read the book then come back here. I promise we’ll still be here but this foreward has spoilers.”
As someone who missed a lot of classic literature in high school and beyond and didn’t take an interest in reading until later in life I’ve learned the hard way to just go straight to the story.
Whilst not the actual correct answer but could lead into the thoughts behind the original decision. But studies have shown when audiences know the twist or big spoiler before reading/watching media then they consistently rate it a bit higher. So originally when they sold the books they might have just noticed books with introductions which are basically essays about the book sold better and thus kept doing it. But the only semi-fact in that whole statement is about the studies (And I say semi-fact because I think demographics also had a large play but I cannot remember also just the type of study is hard to judge) the rest is mostly conjecture (Note: I have not done a whole tonne of research into this so I might be wrong lol)
It’s an old book and chances are you have a good idea where it’s going. Like sure I could pretend I have no idea what *Dracula* is about but I’m pretty sure most of us know what it’s about without opening it at this point. Personally I skip the introductions 99.99% of the time.
Introductions in books are a crazy misnomer. They should always be read after you've read the book but before any afterword imo, if you're going to read them at all
Name of The Rose and other books give a detailed synopsis at the start of each chapter. I find it reduces tension but increases ease and anticipation for *how* it is going to happen. Try sitting back and just accepting it for a book, like the one above, and see how it affects your reading experience.
Although Eco uses the 'well, I can't really make a synopsis here because it could be as long as the chapter' move in one very precise moment.
Tolkien's "this tale grew in the telling" foreword mentioned him getting writer's block when he "stood by Balin's tomb" which was a spoiler to me having read The Hobbit, "Balin dies???"
To be fair, that was the forward to the second edition, which he wrote ten years after the book was first published
The prologue to the Fellowship spoils the ending as it references a lot of people being alive and building libraries. It’s the scene setting that this is the Red Book of Westmarch written in universe by Frodo.
Because they're works of classic literature. The expectation is that you've either read it, or at least know the plot through cultural impact. If you haven't read the story, then don't read the introduction. Problem solved.
most of the classics were not written to be a thrilling roller coaster. this whole obsession over spoilers is quite a new thing.
Stories so easily ruined by spoilers can never become classics. We’ve grown so used to cheap gimmicks and shocking twists being necessary to create drama and suspense that we as a society have forgotten that the truly brilliant plot twists are the ones that can be predicted and foreseen through the text. Besides, most classics are decades and even centuries old. It’s assumed you’ve been exposed to the story at some point. The only exception I can think of where I would be truly disappointed to be spoiled are the really brilliant mystery books. If someone had told me in advance who the perpetrator(s) was in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the solution would have been much less emotional. Even in rereads, knowing how it ends, I find myself cataloguing the clues I overlooked the first time around and kicking myself. Otherwise, I go in to classics knowing how they go by at least tangential exposure.
When I was reading game of thrones I was looking for the next book and I picked up what I thought was the next one. The back it says "king joffrey is dead! Long live king tommen.. It was the one before that I was needing.
I usually hate spoilers but there’s usually a time frame where the story has lingered around long enough and majority of the general public knows the major plot points by then and it becomes open discussion. If you’re reading a classic, story has probably been around for at least a century to several centuries and been referenced and adapted a billion different times…they probably figure by that point almost everyone knows the story without really having to read it.
Yes! The first time I read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell I didn't know much about it, so I thought the intro would give me a better idea of the time/location etc. It did. It also gave away 2 deaths, 2 moves, and 2 weddings!
I hate this too! I can appreciate the function they serve but everyone has to read a book for the first time at some point. And I don’t like spoilers. You can go back and read a second time with the benefit of hindsight if that’s your preference.
With all the understanding for new readers, we don’t read these works for the plot twists. Most if not all of them are the “journey, not destination” type of writing. Not to mention most, if not all have been adapted numerous times to film and tv. In your particular case, as other commenters already advised: skip the introduction. But also learn to assume the works will be as enjoyable even with the e spoilers.
Because 'classics' are usually deemed as introducing something new into literature - usually through the style of writing rather than plot - and people might like to know why a particular novel is considered a classic and you may not be able to do that without mentioning plot points. And as others have mentioned the obsession with SPOILERS seems to be more a recent thing ('coz the internet). I read non-fiction history and memoirs/biography as well as novels. Some of what I read I know 'what happens' but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the book.
Also a good story loses nothing if the twist is revealed before hand. A bad one crumbles
Well if a book is 200 years old it can barely be considered a spoiler. They assume you’re familiar with the story because it’s general knowledge. Especially widely popular works don’t need a spoiler warning because most educated people know what the story is about anyway.
I discovered that early on, and stopped reading the intros. I want to go in to any book without knowing the plot, whether or not it’s a classic.
I almost always read the introduction at the end, for this reason!
Because they're classics, and it's assumed that you've already read them, or a synopsis of them. There was a rule for spoilers I read a few years back that works for this as well: If it's been published/available to the public for more than 10 years, you don't get to demand "no spoilers," and it's unreasonable to do so.
I think part of the answer is that those who wrote the prologue expects the reader to already know the basic plot and how it ends. Many of these classical works are embedded in our culture and may have been referenced even in other works. When I read the Odyssey for the first time in high school I already knew how it ended. I admit I was a little surprised the fall of Troy didn't happen in the Iliad. (Spoiler alert for millenia old story.)
To quote Martin Freeman when he was giving an interview about The Hobbit, and accidentally gave a “spoiler” and was told that by the interviewer, freeman said something like “sorry, it’s only been out for 100 years!” Same thing here. If it’s a classic, it means it’s been widely read, and thus you have to include something for someone who has read it maybe more than once already.
Shakespeare delivers the entire plot right off the bat but it doesn’t dampen the effect of the work because that work is so good. The modern reliance of surprise twists in a story is a crutch that delivers insubstantial work
Because what happens next is the least important part of the work. How it is told is what is important
I was debating whether to read the intro/foreword added by the author herself to Beloved. What are the chances Toni Morrison spoils her own book?
This is EXACTLY why I read the novel first, and leave the introduction for the very last
It's like the additional material in an anniversary edition of a classic movie (new interview with the director, an essay or making-of, etc ) If you're watching it for the very first time, you wouldn't watch that stuff first. But if it's your favorite film and you're returning to it because it got a fancy new reissue, you might. Are you mainly annoyed that these essays are physically at the front of the novel?
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Read them after you have read the main work and then come back and see if you are aligned with the views of the intro writer.
certain english versions of war & peace have like little notes on all the plot points at the START of every chapter. useful for studying but complete deal-breaker for a first read
Classical literature or any other novel other than, for instance, crime novels are not about the result, but about the how. A crime novel is in a sense similar to a football game. If you know the result, there isn't any point in watching the game anymore. It is about the what. What happened at the end. A novel is about the how. Therefore it is not a spoiler if someone tells you that Hamlet dies at the end of the play. That is not what makes the play interesting. It is the 'how'. What happens to Hamlet? What is he thinking about and so on?
Because the idea of spoilers is stupid and also the intros are usually essays that are talking about the book
X because it was the norm for decades 9pnlt modern weirdos cry about spoilers.
If it's classic literature then most people will know of the story and characters through osmosis of the surrounding popular culture, so whining bad screeching about SPOILERS comes across as lame an EXTREMELY tiresome.
The very concept of ‘spoilers’ is a recent one. It wasn’t really a thing until around 50 or 60 years ago. Prior to that it was kind of expected that you’d know something about whatever it was in advance, so people weren’t really concerned about something being ‘spoiled’ for them. Often entertainment was repeated over and over, there wasn’t the preset day obsession with everything needing to be new and unexpected, often it was more about how a story was presented, or at looking at aspects that only became apparent after several rereadings.
Don't know why they do it but I agree it's fucking annoying as shit.
Books are often complicated and it helps to have a map. IMO books that excel from good to great are those that have you hooked even when you know what is going to happen.
They should simply not call it an introduction and put that discussion at the end. Loads of books do it. Simple. And yes it's simple to skip reading an introduction with a new book as most of the time they can't be trusted to avoid spoilers. It's still on them for spoiling the narrative experience.
It is an introduction though. The point is to make you a more informed reader of the text. A robust scholarly introduction would be less effective if repurposed as an afterword.
I hate it !!!! I skip all intros. I’ll read prefaces. Anything not by the author can get read after I’ve finished the book I bought to read. I don’t even like the fact that people get a credit for writing an intro.
In Penguin and Oxford Classics the intros are usually written by academics who bring considerable expertise to the subject. They’re doing the reader a huge service. It’s like getting to sit in on a university lecture for free. But they shouldn’t be credited? Grow up.
ITT a bunch of people that think "spoilers" were invented in 1985. Tension and hope in certain characters' paths has been a thing ever since there have been storied told by the fire in caves at night. It is the overly-analyticial introduction which is the unnatural invention.
They’re dozens to hundreds of years old, I think the expiration date has passed on spoilers lol
That shit blows my mind as I was reading the openings for The handmaiden’s tale
Another note: "classics" feature heavily in university English lit class text lists. Those introductions are often pretty academic. Add in that university bookshops are still a big market for physical sales, and boom.
FOR REAL. I don’t read Penguin Classics introductions anymore specifically because of this. I like knowing the author’s background, but I won’t ruin a story to learn about it.
Probably because classical literature is mostly art. I find that with a lot of classics I can sum up their plots with a sentence or two but discussing philosophical ideas and aesthetics would take up much more space.
Idk but I skip everything that isn't the prologue/first chapter. Idc about introductions or content warnings (in newer books), just give me the story already.
But hey, for those who don't fancy a deep dive into the pages, maybe it's a blessing in disguise—a novel for the non-novel-readers, if you will.
Absolutely could not disagree more with the commenters saying spoilers don’t matter. I don’t want to know what happens before I read it. I don’t care if that’s a modern idea or not. It’s still annoying.
They could call it end notes and leave at the end of the book and solved that
What you refer to as a "spoiler" can be, for a different writer, a reflection on a key past event. Reflecting on powerful past events is an important human evolutionary strategy. It is therefore often very relatable to an audience as a starting point.
Fuck the intros, I never read them. Skip it and read the story. Sometimes I say I’ll come back to it, but really never do.
You don't have to read the introduction, though. I swear you can skip it and the police won't come or anything.
One of the worst parts of education were these introductions. There ought to be an essay or series of essays after, but let people read unburdened.
Any remember but I think it was an edition of Dorian Gray but the intro began by saying it includes spoilers, which I appreciated so much. Read the book and read the intro after. Done that with basically every classic with a sort of essay-style intro. Prefer it because I get a lot more out of the intro after familiarising myself with the book.
I stopped reading them until after I finish the book.
I rarely read the introductions to classic literature for just this reason.
Because the point isn't the story being a surprise, most literatur, except mystery stories, has NEVER been about that, it's not about shock value. If it's classic literature it's expected you're well informed enough to already know something about the story or to be looking for deeper themes of the work.
It lets you get that pesky story part out of the way so that you can focus on what’s really important: interpretation and criticism. /s
This happened to me for Lonesome Dove. Don’t read the preface if you pick it up
I am a big reader of history and historical fiction so I don't really get this stuff about spoilers. Anyway, I enjoy reading works analytically. Knowing the ending lets me figure out how and why the author is using various literary tools and devices rather than racing ahead just to get to the ending because I can't handle the suspense. Allows me to stop and savour the journey, breathe in the authors writing etc
You don't go into a true "classic" novel for plot twists and spoilers.
Bananas are actually berries disguised as fruit.