>abridgedYep, it's reading time.
Is abridgment ever worthwhile? I guess ideally it could be a concise edit that removes meandering bits; but in practice it probably is just arbitrarily chopping a work apart and sewing it back together.
>>24723757>Is abridgment ever worthwhile?Depends. The abridged version of Don Quixote is probably enough to get what that book has to offer. For most novels you probably want the unabridged version.Some works of history, philosophy, and so on consist of massive volumes (e.g. Aristotle, Aquinas, Gibbon) and an abridged version can be handy for the non-specialist.
>>24723633Though it starts out strong, that full novel is a slog. I can see the abridged version being more palatable to most.
>>24723789I agree that abridged editions make more sense for nonfiction. The only novel I can see benefiting from abridgment is Les Misérables.
>Abridged Edition>Fiction
>translated>abridged>introduction>afterwordadiós
>>24724994yeah im having a harder time with it than i did with infinite jest. Its hilarious at times dont get me wrong but im still around the spot in the wilderness where quixote says hes going to go intentionally fucking nuts to share the sorrows of the mad goatherd. i was so mad when he interuppted the mans story just so he could talk about his fucking BOOKS
>>24723633>abridgedYou didn't read it.
>>24723633I do not know what kind of amorphous monstrosity you're reading, but I can assure you it is no Cervantes.
>abridged Quixote If you hurry through this book you are basically a mentally retarded person.
>>24723757In terms of actual quality of reading, I'd argue The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is the standard example of abridgment working. Economically though it was very useful until digital formats rendered it obsolete. I have a large collection of old Reader's Digests which abridged several works to fit them into one volume. Did the works suffer? Probably so, but it made them affordable to the working man. He could own a selection of writings that at some times were quite the bargain.
