It is my considered opinion that few are improved by having an English professor analyze it afterwards.
I’ve read some really great forewords/afterwords in books. Not sure if they were all English professors, authors, or something else though.
I am really bad with names, both real and fictional, and frequently lose track of who is who in a big complicated book. But that information is best served in an appendix, at the end of the book. And most books come with a handy table of contents, that includes information like what’s in the appendices.
Ngaio Marsh generally had a dramatis personae in her mystery novels. No surprise, considering her theatrical background. I always found them helpful.
Also, i was amused, rereading a late edition of the Lord of the Rings, to notice that the author’s forward, “about hobbits”, not only explains that “yes, they really did have tobacco”, but also, tells you that almost all of the major characters survive and lived happily ever after. It explains that this story was copied from the book of Frodo’s notes, sent by Meriadoc’s son to the son of Faramir, and that Pippin’s descendants also kept a copy in the Hobbiton library, which was endowed by Sam’s daughter, and… I made up those details, but they are close to what’s in the forward, and the vast majority of the main characters who do survive the story are mentioned. (And Gandalf isn’t.)
A roommate had a single-volume copy of the first three Hitchhiker’s Guide books, which had a rather lengthy introduction telling the history of the series, from radio programme to books and international fame. I found the introduction fascinating, but gave up on the actual story after the first chapter.
To be specific, the original Red Book of Westmarch (containing Bilbo’s account of the Quest for Erebor, the Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King, and the Translations From the Elvish which comprise the Silmarilion) was lost, but a copy was made by Pippin at King Aragorn’s request, to which Faramir’s grandson made some additions, and a copy of that copy was subsequently returned to the Shire, and that copy is what the Professor translated from Westron into English.
That’s exactly what I do, if I even bother to read the introduction.
I read that before reading the book but somewhow it didn’t spoil anything, because at that point the hobbits are just names to you, and, not knowing their significance you mostly don’t connect the “Meriadoc” mentioned in the prologue with good old Merry Brandigamo Brandybuck.
I rarely read introductions nowadays, but in the days before Wikipedia I occasionally enjoyed biographical information about the author (e.g. Charles Dickens or Herman Melville) along with general historical background.
Even if none of the names mean anything, you probably were aware at some level that the Shire still existed, years later. And there was an orderly world where people requested books and copied them in libraries. That doesn’t sound like Mordor. I think Tolkien did, intentionally, spoil the ending in the preface.
By the time I was really aware of the danger to the shire (say about the Council of Elrond) I didn’t remember much about the prologue, it helped that I was reading the book in a public library where I went about once a week, so I took about a month to get there hehehe.
Of the introduction or of the book?
Funny they translated the names (well, some of them) and they still did not make sense.
About 40 years ago I’d never read any Steinbeck and randomly selected East Of Eden to see what was what. The result was my spending the next few months binge reading all the rest of his books. The only one I couldn’t get into was Travels With Charley. Go figure.
I enjoyed East of Eden but as a major Steinbeck fan, I’ve always favored The Grapes of Wrath for “The Great American Novel” with “Eden” a close second.
Now that you have me thinking about it, though, I might just give East of Eden another read. It’s been years.
Count me as another admirer of East of Eden. It was probably my favorite of the books I had to read for Senior AP English in high school, and I relatively recently re-read it to see if it held up (it did).