In the past two days, I’ve read two challenging novels in translation. I say challenging because, first, their style made it hard to get into a reading groove and, second, they come from very different places and times from my own. Because of the second challenge, the publishers and translators included an afterword (Swallowing Mercury) and a foreword (Judgment). These two approaches to helping a reader understand the contexts of these books got me to thinking about what an ideal supplement would look like—at least for me.
Most of the time, I prefer to go into a book knowing just a few specifics about the plot and nothing more. Occasionally, I might seek out a longer review or look a classic up on Wikipedia if I can’t figure the book out on my own. I like going in mostly blind because I want to be able to make my own impressions. Once I read a convincing argument for how a book should be read, I have a hard time shaking it.
With an afterword, I learn about the author’s context, inspiration, etc. when I’ve finished the book. I don’t even have to worry about accidentally learning things by skimming through the foreword. This worked beautifully when I read Swallowing Mercury, I suppose because I knew just enough about 1980s Poland to catch references. The afterword did deepen my understanding of the stories but in an “Oh, that’s interesting” kind of way rather than a “You completely read this wrong” way.
Judgment comes with a foreword that discussed the author’s biography, his experiments with Yiddish writing, and some explicated scenes from the novel. I skipped it and read the book…And I got lost. The book was dense with subtext that I mostly missed the first time around. The experimental style threw me off repeatedly. After I read the foreword, a lot more made sense.
All of this leads me to the gamble a reader has to make when they run into a book with additional material. Do you take the risk of not knowing what’s really going on in an attempt to make your own reading of a novel? Or do you read the supplemental material and have things spelled out for you? Even with my general bewilderment in reading Judgment, I think I still prefer to keep the blinders on until I finish. The few times I read the additions, I remember waiting for scenes like I wait for the twist in novels. It really did feel like someone told me the whole story in advance and I got bored. All the tension was gone. I would rather be a bit lost than bored.
I’m with you. I hate forewords that give away plot points and/or tell me what I should get out of a book. I don’t mind getting historical context, author background, or translation methodology delivered in a neutral non-spoiler-y way before the book starts, but writers of forewords usually seem incapable of doing that. Save the discussion of themes and plot points for the afterward!
True, most of them seem like mini-seminars.
Definitely I prefer to read the book first and make my own judgments, then read any foreword or afterword to see what it adds. I avoid forewords like the plague – they’re so often full of spoilers…