I used to enjoy reading the introductions - I found them especially helpful on Kafka translations - but then I took out a Scarlet Letter ebook on Libby and the introduction was a 5 minute summary of the entire book. It wasn’t even a literary analysis, which I would’ve been fine with because the social context of an old America may have been helpful to me as a UK reader, but it was literally just a Spark Notes synopsis. I knew nothing about the book at all before going in so it ruined it entirely and I gave up because I didn’t really see what else I had to learn from it…
I’ll probably avoid them on classics going forward after that, or only bother with introductions on physical or ebooks so I can just drop it and get reading the book proper if it gets too exposition-y.
wearezombie t1_j9fcl94 wrote
Reply to Do you read the introductions of novels? by BadIdeasDrawnPoorly
I used to enjoy reading the introductions - I found them especially helpful on Kafka translations - but then I took out a Scarlet Letter ebook on Libby and the introduction was a 5 minute summary of the entire book. It wasn’t even a literary analysis, which I would’ve been fine with because the social context of an old America may have been helpful to me as a UK reader, but it was literally just a Spark Notes synopsis. I knew nothing about the book at all before going in so it ruined it entirely and I gave up because I didn’t really see what else I had to learn from it…
I’ll probably avoid them on classics going forward after that, or only bother with introductions on physical or ebooks so I can just drop it and get reading the book proper if it gets too exposition-y.