introducing myself

[Socks]

do you read the introduction in a book? do you care for it at all? i seem to not. the first time i open a novel or a collection there is a desire and a thrill to peruse and digest everything within the covers, front to back. i start in earnest and end in dismay, at the horrid phenomenon known as introductions. why are they necessary, and especially prevalent? this phenomenon of, of mere editors and commentators who feel a need to insert a drawn out monologue of half information and three quarters sentiment, put out the fire with which i kindle the story and its only author.

if any introduction is to be had, it is in the book. let me read it undisturbed. let me relish and rejoice at the words and at the heart of the matter unmoved. otherwise let the author speak. i have not come for your opinion. i do not care for an opine. at the very least keep it concise and full of meaning, do not tell me what is to come and why. i shall see to it myself. i held the present book within my hands, and felt a wave of melancholy upon my chest, 16 pages deep. that is not an introduction, that is banter in disguise. if i had come for an essay, i would have written one myself.

[silvertone]

I rarely read an introduction, and if I do it is after I read the book.

[Samus Aran]

I generally don't read prefaces or forwards or things of that sort, no. At least not until I've already read the book, if at all. A good book speaks for itself anyway, right?

[Nyerp]

that is exactly what i feel like when i see a socks post

[Socks]

i write for you. but you do the understanding. even if it is very poor.

[Samus Aran]

I especially hate how there are actually some prefaces or forwards that actually spoil parts of the plot, especially if it's in a story anthology for academic purposes or something like that. I've seen a couple of those and it pissed me off.

[Selkie]

Eh, maybe sometimes for imformative books but for novels yeah they are pretty pointless.

[the shortest route to the sea]

For fiction, no. But for non-fiction, it helps me get some sense of the writer's perspective. In Nat Henthoff's "At the Jazz Band Ball," so much of his writing is like "lol I hung out with Duke Ellington he said this," but Nat's honest-to-god influence in Jazz wouldn't have been clear without the intro. With fiction, I think the first reading of the story needs to be more pure; if you're going to analyze biography of the author, or its time period, do it after. God, I hate book jackets too.

Interestingly, the most-introduced book of all time is Douglas Adams' "Salmon of Doubt" collection. 3 of them. Socks, you might like his speech/essay "Is there an artificial god?"

[snoorkel]

Sometimes, if I don't I always do if I read the book a second time