Spare Me The Introduction

Reading is good. That’s my review of reading. Doing a lot more of it lately has done me good.

I am making up for lost time by trying to read the books a person is supposed to read. By that I mean there is a feeling of inferiority inside of me resulting from not being as well read as I feel I should be. All standards implied herein are arbitrary and capricious.

I should have read all the great books decades ago for one reason in particular: I find myself curmudgeonly annoyed by introductions to books. You know, the (often longwinded) explanation printed within the pages of a book, saying a bunch of things about the book, before the actual book. These preface so many books.

Was it this way since forever, or is it a recent phenomenon to seemingly always include an introduction? (I can’t tell, because I’m usually buying newer editions of classic titles.) Did we grow so unable to digest the roughage of literature that academic mother birds had to start pre-chewing it for us? I kind of feel like the benefits of reading again (respect to those of you who never stopped) would be blunted by reading these intros. Make me struggle. Let me feel ignorant. Let things fly over my head.

The introduction is usually written by a scholar, perhaps even the consensus authority, on the book or its subject or author. It may have a lot of interesting insight to help me understand the book better. But why not put that after the actual book, at least? It’s baffling to me, the implication that I want to read opinions on and interpretation of a book before its actual contents. And when I read an introduction from someone of the current era to a timeless tome, the one thing I can count on is that the interpretation they push is going to age the worst of anything between its covers.

As pictured above, these introductions might include important things to understand when embarking on the book. As a translator, I am loath to communicate my notes directly with the reader unless absolutely necessary, but I can see how it might be so. But “Further Reading”? Bro. Let me do the reading.

Since I’m on an old-man roll, let me confess that I’m also against the existence of and of course reading the synopsis/teaser of a novel, as printed on the back cover. Sure, it exists due to the commercial nature of publishing. It just bothers me. Let me go in unsullied by knowledge of plot points and sometimes major developments. I’m reading the book because it seemed more interesting than reading the Wikipedia article about the book.

I could be missing something. By all means, set me straight.