I’d been warned that the preface to Lonesome Dove gives away some details. I wasn’t sure, so I listened carefully, and when it sounded like the author was about to reveal something, I stopped it. All was fine.
When I finished listening to the book (amazing, by the way; loved Will Patton’s narration, too!), I went back to the preface. Sure enough, it did spoil a detail from the book. At least I’d already finished it. Then it dropped a major spoiler for the sequel. GRRRRR!
by jwink3101
3 Comments
If the author wrote it in the book, can it really be a spoiler?
Is it not fairly well-known that a preface is not guaranteed to be spoiler-free, just in general?
I’m not trying to be snarky or anything, this is a genuine question. I was always under the assumption that a preface is not really something one should be reading in advance of the book if your desire is to formulate all of your own opinions about the story. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered anyway. It’s entirely possible that my perception there is very wrong, lol.
If a book I’m reading has a preface, I always default to reading it after I’m done, to see if it shines any light on something I may have missed.
I just don’t read them until maybe after. It seems that it’s broadly accepted that you can write stuff in the front of a book assuming that someone has read everything the author has ever written, so fighting it isn’t worth it.