Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?

Gerry Quinn · 14 Dec 2011, 15:11 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:11:15 -0000
Subject: (urth) Gummed-Up Works or Got Lives?
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From: Daniel Petersen 

> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 1:36 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:

> > Given that Wolfe is best on a re-read, it?s logical that there can?t really be a ?best? order!
> Em, there's no logic I can see there.  The first half of the sentence does not entail 
> (or even imply) the second half.  [..]

> But perhaps you were being *jovial* rather than trivial and I've made overmuch
> out of mere facetious 
hyperbole!
What I was trying to say was that in series that are best at a first read, the spoiler effects (and their opposite) that come with reading them out of order are likely to impinge greatly on the reader?s first reading experience (and in this case best reading experience).
But series that are better on a second read, which is the case with most Wolfe, clearly cannot have the second reading experience damaged in the same way by reading them out of order.  So the bedst reading experience should still be available to a second-time reader who has ?pre-read? in an eccentric sequence. 
Mind you, I am probably not very spoiler sensitive to the majority of literature.  Unless it is a book I greatly anticipate, or a thriller or something, I always open a book for the first time about a quarter of the way through.  If I like what I read there, I start the book.  I find openings a bit of a deterrent as a rule.
- Gerry Quinn
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