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Libre

Libre

Member
How do you feel about opening a book, ready to plunge in, and being confronted with a lengthy introducion? I hate it. Worse yet when the intro is not even written by the author. Sometimes you get some blowhard telling you how to read the book!
I started Herzog by Saul Bellow only to be assaulted by an intro by Phillip Roth, on how to read Bellow. It was like, XXIV pages long! Please, I know how to read. How else could I read the introduction?
Maybe I should have read that one though. I could NOT get into Herzog at all.

I hate longwinded introductions that meander and delay you from the book itself.
Or, even worse, you can have a Preface, an Introduction, a Prologue, finally an Author's Note, then some acknowledgments...on and on.
I just want to read the friggin' book.
I used to think it was cheating not to read all this stuff, but now I'll normally skim or entirely skip the intros.
Unless it is written by the author - then I'll read it.
You?
 
Depends on the book and the author. Generally I tend to skip introductions because I also just want to read the book. I like reading introductions written by Clive Barker though.
 
Introductions have a nasty habit of nonchalantly mentioning essential plot elements.

Then again, if Philip Roth wrote more introductions, I probably wouldn't mind them as much. :rolleyes:
 
unKeMPt said:
Introductions have a nasty habit of nonchalantly mentioning essential plot elements.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I tried to read an intro to an edition of Jane Eyre, where whoever wrote it started talking about events in the story.

Sometimes they provide great insight (particularly when you are required to write an essay on the text in question!), but I like to leave them until the end, unless it is a quick Author's Note.
 
It all depends on the book really. I tend to skip the introduction...I would read it after finishing the book most of the time, it depends also if it is a non-fiction or fiction book. With non-fiction books I tend to read it, otherwise I do not.
 
I read the introductions after I've finished the book, as I find that sometimes plot points are revealed in the introduction. Penguin Classics are especially bad for that - they even reveal future events in the little footnotes scattered throughout the book :mad:
 
The best introductions are the ones that give background info on the author and perhaps the setting..anymore than that and I get unhappy. What I really like are the writers who give more information afterwards, as in historical detail and in the case of Ann Rinaldi, the facts she played with..
 
I tend to view introductions as essential toilet reading. I know I'm not going to finish a chapter or want to read the book just yet. But they fill five minutes otherwise spent twiddling my...
thumbs
. ;)
 
My sophomore World Literature teacher told us NEVER, NEVER to read the introductions, prologues...etc, until after we had finished the book. Apparently one of her classes was reading a version of one of Shakespeare's plays and the ending was given away. That advice has stayed with me and I usually never read intros. Just give me the book and I'll be happy :)
 
i hate it when endings are given away! they do it a lot with classics and dumas translations. so i don't read intros. Or i just read the Dumas in french, where they don't have an intro.
 
HermioneWeasley said:
i hate it when endings are given away! they do it a lot with classics and dumas translations. so i don't read intros. Or i just read the Dumas in french, where they don't have an intro.
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It's not exclusive to Dumas. I've found this in most classics. A quick glance at my bookshelf here and I can't see a classic that does not have an introduction in which some plot element was given away. Most even have additional translators notes. Sometimes these introductions include spoilers to other books! I'm looking in your direction Richard Pevear!
 
abecedarian said:
What I really like are the writers who give more information afterwards, as in historical detail and in the case of Ann Rinaldi, the facts she played with..
Click to expand...
Philippa Gregory does this with her books. I just finished The Virgin's Lover and at the end she included an author's note detailing the existing facts about some of the plots she used during the story. I thought that was great.
 
I avoid them just because of the length; too cumbersome to deal with. I really find them too expository for me and they just seem to ramble by the end.
 
Usually I wait until I finish the book itself before I go on to the introduction. There are exceptions to the rule, those being copies of books I've read before that lacked any introduction.
 
I always start with the introduction on books that have them. Do I always finish the intro? No!

I started doing this when I found one or two fabulously written, interesting ones and have never gone back. At least start or skim an intro to see if it will be useful/interesting. I recall one where the intro was better than the rest of the book. Can I name it? Also, no. :confused:
 
Life of Pi ~ Why you should read the intro.

Libre said:
How do you feel about opening a book, ready to plunge in, and being confronted with a lengthy introducion? I hate it. Worse yet when the intro is not even written by the author. Sometimes you get some blowhard telling you how to read the book!
I started Herzog by Saul Bellow only to be assaulted by an intro by Phillip Roth, on how to read Bellow. It was like, XXIV pages long! Please, I know how to read. How else could I read the introduction?
Maybe I should have read that one though. I could NOT get into Herzog at all.

I hate longwinded introductions that meander and delay you from the book itself.
Or, even worse, you can have a Preface, an Introduction, a Prologue, finally an Author's Note, then some acknowledgments...on and on.
I just want to read the friggin' book.
I used to think it was cheating not to read all this stuff, but now I'll normally skim or entirely skip the intros.
Unless it is written by the author - then I'll read it.
You?
Click to expand...


An example of WHY you SHOULD read the intro, is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I skipped it and was completely comfused at times. When I finished the book I decided to read it and it explained alot. I then went and re-read the parts that pertained to the intro.
 
You're right there.
I did read Life of Pi, and now that you mention it, the intro was integral to the story.
I guess you're taking your chances when you skip anything in a book.
The publisher put it there, so I suppose it should be read.
My preference is to read a book from cover to cover.
It just annoys me when I have to read a lengthy intro - especially if it contains spoilers - as they sometimes do.
 
I tend to skip introductions. Sometimes i might read them after finishing the book but it's rare.
 
I usually skim the introduction, and if it looks interesting I sit down and read it. There have only been a few that I actually did sit down and read; one of them was Bradbury's introduction on Fahrenheit 451. Now he knew how to write an introduction without making you want to kill yourself. It drew you in and was quite entertaining, and discussed how he started writing this book. I also read the intros to the Sandman books by Neil Gaiman, and I think they were all written by different authors than Neil himself but they were interesting.

But yes, most authors do not know how to do that. And if it's not relevant and it's not interesting, it achieves nothing and should be cut out of the book. (This category includes 97% of introductions. Prologues are fine.)
 
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