Ludicrous Novel Introductions

Let's pause for a moment and ask ourselves, "What, exactly, is the purpose of a novel's "introduction"?

I wouldn't call myself a scholar on the historical development of literary "Introductions" - possibly someone else is more knowledgeable on this subject than I am - but I'm going to make a few tentative stabs in the dark, here.

Authors themselves were more apt to write, in days gone by, a letter of introduction directed to the patron for whom it was dedicated. Example: "Dear O Great and Magnanimous Marquis: Here is my humble work which I've only written in the vague hope that in your genius and brilliance you might toss me a few scudi, being the poor, unworthy, albeit long-winded, pitiful soul that I am." (Yes, I realize I've mixed aristocratic titles and currency, but you get the idea.)

These days, you tend to see introductions written by people who consider themselves, as we say in the biz, "Subject Matter Experts" or "SME"s - usually a professor of some impressive college or university ... or a university that isn't impressive at all, but is so far away that most people have no idea whether it's impressive or not. These writers of introductions get their name printed on the book's cover, right under the name of the person who did the REAL work.

My Lifelong Compilation of Thoughts and Ideas that Took an Entire Lifetime to Carve Into My Bedpost
Written As a Mystery Thriller
By Aristotle
Introduction Written by Armbuster P. Snidely, Senior Professore of Studii Classiche Molto Importante, M.A., B.A., Ph.D., R.A.F., M.D., J.D., M.B.A., Universita Villa Seca.

(There may or not be an University in Villa Seca, Chile. Certainly if there is, I do apologize, but I'm guessing not - looks like farmland to me from this height, and while I'm at it, many kudos to Google Maps for finding the most out-of-the-way place possible for purposes of this commentary - the point being that if anyone with the surname of Snidely had no choice but to work there, it was a safe bet that Oxford and Cambridge - and probably even the Liverpool Technical College and Bartending School - have already booted him unceremoniously out the nearest portico.)

But I digress. Snidely's reason for the introduction should be to tell you about Aristotle, why Aristotle is important and why you the reader should care about Aristotle, why he might have gone against type and written a mystery thriller (I suspect we'd all be very curious about that one), and how this work of art has been transported into your hands through the centuries. It is NOT - I'm going to guess - Snidely's purpose in this Introduction to add, "Oh yeah. And about this thriller? The butler did it."

Which brings me in a roundabout way via Google Maps to the Barnes & Noble Classics Edition of The House of Mirth.

I had quite recently discovered Edith Wharton. Well. Let me correct that. Edith Wharton had been "discovered" long before I wandered onto the scene - I should say that I had only recently discovered that I really enjoyed READING Edith Wharton. I had read The Age of Innocence, and loved it. I decided I wanted to read something else by Edith Wharton. In fact, I'd wanted to read something else by Edith Wharton so much so that I'd staggered through a windy Boston rain storm to the MIT Cooperative Bookstore, nearly joining Julie Andrews in an unexpected flight into the skies over Cambridge via umbrella, to buy it. (If Mary Poppins were given to wearing cuff-soaked jeans, a flapping raincoat and soggy Nike's, that is). I bought the Barnes & Noble Classics Edition of The House of Mirth and, after carefully wrapping the book in a plastic bag, gusted back to the office with it. I opened it a few hours later at Boston's North Station, waiting for the 6:15 to Haverhill, which was, as it always was, unapologetically late and tearfully overwhelmed by "technical difficulties". But even that didn't matter. Ah, happiness! I had a new novel to read.

I opened the novel and started with the Introduction. I hadn't even read a word of Wharton's prose, when to my shock, the Introductionist -- who for the sake of his dignity and professional reputation we'll call "Jeffrey Meyers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature who has published forty-three books including biographies of Ernest Hemingway, Edmund Wilson, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad and George Orwell, and whose life of Somerset Maugham, will be published by Knopf in February 2004" -- (all together now: "Ooooooooo ...") put pen to parchment and proceeded to scribble, "Oh yeah. And about this thriller? The butler did it."

Of course he didn't use those words - what he did do was tell me within the first four pages of Introduction how the novel ended. I was so stunned at the betrayal I nearly dropped the book. He might as well have held me up at gunpoint right under the blinking "Late Departures" board. He certainly robbed me of the hours of pleasure I would have spent reading the novel, trying to imagine how it ended. I'd be willing to guess he spent so much time writing his books that he'd forgotten what it was like to actually read one. He'd completely forgotten what it was like to become so engrossed in a novel that your imagination whirls in and around on itself, trying to imagine where the characters are going and what they're doing and where they'll end up.

And you can't even entirely blame Meyers - although, by gosh and golly, you'd certainly like to - although you do wonder why he didn't ask how Barnes and Noble was planning to use his notes on Edith Wharton and edited them accordingly. You'd also wonder why the publisher's staff, represented by an equally anonymous character we'll call "George Stade, Barnes and Noble Classics Consulting Editorial Director" - didn't stop and say, "Hey! Should we be talking about the end of the novel into the Introduction where it might ruin it for the reader?" And while we're at it, where were all the younger staff at Barnes & Noble Publishing who have been raised on internet commentaries where most people who make comments about movies or books have the common courtesy to preface their posts with the universally understandable "SPOILER ALERT!"

This isn't brain surgery and yet every single one of them managed to miss it: Rule Number One of Book Introductions: you don't blurt out how the novel ends in the Introduction -- how hard is that to figure out?

As for me, I slammed The House of Mirth closed in complete disgust and started reading essays on "Import and Export of Enlightenment in 18th Century Denmark". At least I had no idea how THAT ended.

Originally published:  Nov. 28th, 2007 at 3:18 AM