Do you care about spoilers? Yes/no? Why/why not?
Yes. Good writing should affect me in unexpected ways.
No. If spoilers mattered then rereading books would be useless. It's about the journey, not the destination.
>>25224060If spoilers dont matter then why does rereading the book feel like a different experience than for the very first time
>>25224064A good book is a new experience every time you read it.
It honestly depends on what you’re reading and if it’s plot heavy or not.Of course if it’s a mystery novel you don’t want any spoilers since that kinda goes against the point. But if you tell someone what happens in Ulysses then you’re giving away less than 1% of what the book actually has to offer literarily.
>>25224042At the end of the day reading is entertainment and I do like to be surprised every once in a while. But my life isn't ruined when I come across a spoiler. However I do try to avoid them, which is why I treat introductions as an afterword.
>>25224042No. Start with the Greeks
>>25224099>reading is entertainmentOnly if you read slop.entertainment/amusement =/= intellectual cultivation
>>25224213Who says intellectual cultivation can’t be entertaining?
>>25224042I don't care about spoilers. Even if I know what happens, I still don't know how it happens. And with a really good book, it matters even less, because the enjoyment is multi-layered; the prose, the tone, the themes all add to the experience of reading.
>>25224218pretentious blowhards get really mad if you imply that knowledge should be accessible/entertaining.
>>25224218Adorno, E Michael Jones et al. Anyway you need to elaborate on what you mean by "At the end of the day reading is entertainment" and what that has to do with the topic. Some read for suspense and thrills, some read to coom, others read to think. Spoilers really only apply to reading for suspense and thrills. High literature isn't in that category, slop is. High literature is for intellectual cultivation. Hence being entertained by surprises is not in the intellectual cultivation category of reading.
>>25224042Depends; usually I like to go into a novel with as few preconceptions or absorbed interpretations as possible. I think in literature spoilers matter less than in other media, because if I told you what happens in Hamlet, the Odyssey, Paradise Lost, Ulysses or Infinite Jest, chances are you either already know it or the way it's presented is what makes it a surprising and new experience to read.I think the obsession with avoiding spoilers comes down to an overvaluing of novelty and a de-valuing of the deep connection to art that can only come with familiarity from repetition.I guess there's also one-and-done stuff like mystery novels where once you've read the detective's explanation, or been told about it, there's no point re-reading it or even thinking about it. But in that case, if knowing what's in it makes it impossible to enjoy, is it even worth reading at all?
>>25224248Detective fiction can also make you think though, so suspense isn't all there's to it.
>>25224260Thinking is optional since it's going to be explained at the end anyway, unless you leave out the explanation and just let people think about it and argue for themselves for eternity like the more "literary" stuff does.
>>25224246I wasn’t the one who said that, I find joy in cultivating my mind, anon. Sorry Adorno, can’t say I agree with you, Ive had fun after the holocaust, and I find comfort in discomfort. I like Schoenberg just like him, just because it’s rigorously academic doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining.
>>25224277I mean it sometimes makes you think in general, about things other than the mystery, it's thought provoking.
>>25224330So? The unsubstantiated claim was that "reading is entertainment". No it's not by definition entertainment. To some it is. To some it might serve a higher purpose than amusement. You're American, it's showing. Slop people. Slop country. Godless. Soulless. A Coney Island of the Mindless.>Antiqua typefaces were seen as "un-German", and using them took on connotations of "shallow", "light", and "not serious". In contrast, Fraktur, with its much darker and denser script, was viewed as representing allegedly German virtues such as depth and sobriety.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_dispute
