(no subject)
Jan. 31st, 2011 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lolabobsI has a puppy and a suicidal bunny! Thank you dawn_eh and elfinessy
I also has significantly less chocolates than I started the weekend with, but I won't tell if you won't.
***
I was talking on Wednesday with a friend about reading - and he said that he always read the ending of books before he started reading them, as he couldn't cope emotionally if there was an unhappy ending. He did this always, and, if reading a series of books and one he reads has an unhapy event he skips the next book(s) in the series - as an example: a character's partner died in one series, he missed out the next two published books until he thought it would be safe to read another.
This boggled me - I can understand people liking spoilers, and I know when my Mum read Mills and Boon she would read the last chapter to see how sappy it was (which we as a family welcomed as it limited the amount of times a book went flying across the front room when she became exasperated!), I just find it hard to imagine being so vulnerable that you can't cope with a less than blissful happy ending.
For me, part of reading a book for the first time is that whole 'not knowing what's going to happen' the tense anxiety or anticipation, the 'I can't put the book down till I know ' experience. And while I will reread a book over and over, I want that first time experience unsullied!
What do other people think? Do? Like I said, I can understand the 'tease' of spoilers and anticipating how they will appear/play out, but to know the ending fully? I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts.
dawn_eh and elfinessyI also has significantly less chocolates than I started the weekend with, but I won't tell if you won't.
***
I was talking on Wednesday with a friend about reading - and he said that he always read the ending of books before he started reading them, as he couldn't cope emotionally if there was an unhappy ending. He did this always, and, if reading a series of books and one he reads has an unhapy event he skips the next book(s) in the series - as an example: a character's partner died in one series, he missed out the next two published books until he thought it would be safe to read another.
This boggled me - I can understand people liking spoilers, and I know when my Mum read Mills and Boon she would read the last chapter to see how sappy it was (which we as a family welcomed as it limited the amount of times a book went flying across the front room when she became exasperated!), I just find it hard to imagine being so vulnerable that you can't cope with a less than blissful happy ending.
For me, part of reading a book for the first time is that whole 'not knowing what's going to happen' the tense anxiety or anticipation, the 'I can't put the book down till I know ' experience. And while I will reread a book over and over, I want that first time experience unsullied!
What do other people think? Do? Like I said, I can understand the 'tease' of spoilers and anticipating how they will appear/play out, but to know the ending fully? I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-05 01:57 pm (UTC)For me the journey is the anticpitation and excitement/nervousness/fear/thrill etc etc etc of going on the journey at the same time as the characters - linking all that in with my reactions and how I'm experiencing all of that that makes it!
I can then plug into all of that when I reread the book, getting a slightly different experience that time around.
It's fascinating to me that something ostensibly as 'basic' as reading can be so different for different people!