>book is spoiled in the introduction

>reading introductions

I have NEVER read an introduction and thought to myself "wow, that was great, having read this will surely enhance my enjoyment of the actual book!"
Because that's not a thing that ever happens to anyone

Introductions are hot TRASH

>reading for plot

>>10019724
I think that anon is talking about chapter 3 (?). Can't say for sure since I haven't read this since high school.

>>10019724
I get what you're coming from, but I've run into some really good ones. Mostly by great writers, not their lesser fanboys.

>>10019711
>analyzing the first 5 pages of the book

>>10019711
There's something worse: major spoilers in the cover.

I took Middlemarch from the library and I just began reading it. I was excited as fuck "this shit is really interesting". Then for some reason I read the back cover (it was a penguin edition. no wonder why this shit happened) and there as a major fucking spoiler in the back cover and I became highly disappointed.

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>>10019711
>not reading the plot summary beforehand to estrange yourself from the work
It's like you don't even want to critically analyze the text

>>10019738
>>10019724
i posted the edition with the introduction by "Brad Leithauser"... which contains spoilers

>>10019711
I honestly stopped caring about spoilers a long time ago. If anything having a general understanding of how a story is going to turn out before I go into it helps me focus on what's going on in the particular part I'm reading now, as opposed to constantly trying to figure out what's going to happen next.

Mind you, I get that some people don't feel that way and some people are genuinely reading it to find out where point B is instead of to enjoy the journey between point A and point B.

>>10019711
>Read the introduction
>It intentionally misleads you from the actual intent of the novel
>The introduction was just written under the author's pseudonym as a pomo gag

>>10019745
Fucking Amen. If it's written by another author it's almost always great. you know it's going to be garbage when it's written by some English department faculty. Below even that is theatre people. I have a Saki collection introduced by Noel Coward and that faggot just wrote an excerpt from his autobiography.

I don't get why anons shit on introductions, prefaces and forewords. They're often pretty good and, moreover, why would you NOT want more reading material?

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>>10020914
I've got more books I'm planning/want to read than I have time for even if I did nothing but speeder ad for the rest of my life. If anything I need to cut down. Also tfw I think about the fact that I will most likely die in the middle of a book.

>>10020975
Hell if I do maybe it will count as unfinished business an I'll get to become a ghost bro. That'd be cool.

Sometimes introductions are worth a read, but as soon as they start talking about the plot I skim until the threat's over. Most recently, the introduction I read in the Oxford edition of To the Lighthouse was good.

Why shit on introductions and afterwords?
Don't read them if you don't want to.
Unlike abridged discourse, for which it's not even said anywhere that it's abridged.

>>10019724
>he doesn't buy books that come with fantastic introductions written by eminent scholars or other authors
Why exactly did you buy that edition, then? All classics are in the public domain. The money you're spending is almost entirely for notes/introduction and what not.

I also enjoy reading essays on books that I don't want spoiled.

>>10019711
go fuck yourself pleb

>>10019711
>just finished tgor
>the impact of the ending was dulled because the controversy surrounding the breastfeeding scene was spoken about in the introduction
i would have cried if i didn't already know it was coming

>>10019711
>reading the introduction first
You read it after you finish the book to see what the "expert" got wrong

>>10022301
>he buys books

>>10019724
pynchon did the intro for BDSLILLUTM