Not So Much

We have been in the throes of some serious summer reading, and each member of our family has a book log to turn back in to our local library this week. I'll do an update on that later, but for now I'm using this space to talk about something that has been troubling me over the past couple of years.

I'll just get right to it. I'm kind of tired of the rambling preamble at the front of every book - fiction or nonfiction. Having a forward, introduction, "author's note," preface or  prologue has become a requisite part of every book, and I stopped reading the author's (or worse! someone else's intro to the book) explanations about a year ago. I'm boycotting all forms of introduction/explanation.

On the one hand, I understand the compulsion to explain what must represent months - if not years - of work. However, do you know what's missing from the pages of classic literature? Introductions. If Steinbeck and Hemingway did not need to explain their motivation to readers, then I am pretty sure no one else does either.  If further words were needed to explain the actual book itself, then those words should have been included in the original text. This is beginning to sound a little mean-spirited, and I do not mean for that to be the case.

My larger suspicion is that an intro has become fashionable at publishing houses and is now considered a requirement... a way to connect with the reader perhaps. Again, if an author has written a book totaling somewhere between 250-500 pages, I'm probably going to feel a connection organically, as the book is being read. If the book is less than 200 pages, let's consider making the text a magazine article/feature. If the book exceeds 500 pages, you know, it's probably plenty; don't add any more words in an introduction.

So, in conclusion, I don't read them any more. Not so much with the prologues, prefaces, forwards and intro's.