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| mood | : |  | bleh |
He dies.
It was him.
We still don't know.
If that's all there is to it, if its thunder can be stolen by a simple re-telling (within 100x100 pixels, even!!), then it couldn't have been very good to begin with.
If I can read reviews and descriptions with spoilers, ratings, plot synopses, Coles Notes, essays and analyses and yet still feel like I'm getting more from reading the original text, then it truly is an excellent book.
But for many books, like most movies, the best parts are in the teasers and the actual product doesn't offer you much more.
[Update - October 21, 2005]
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Comments
As for me, I turned to the last page first. Heh.
I also want to add that some books depend on the sense of mystery more than other books, for example, detective stories. I perceive detective/mystery stories as elaborately set-up puzzles, and always try to "solve" them before the author presents the solution - much more fun than solving math puzzles or crosswords ! While really good detective stories can be perfectly enjoyable on the second and subsequent readings (and it's fun to watch the author cleverly sneaking the clues !), the puzzle-solving experience is not possible if the solution is known in advance. (Of course some people don't consider detective stories as literature :)
Cheers,
Richard
However, having said that? HP fans are some of the whiniest bitches I've ever heard. Jesus Christ, it's a f'ing children's novel and frankly if it's anything like the first one, not a particularly great one. For this, out of everything, they freak out like their first born was killed in front of their eyes? Get some perspective, people, it is such a minor thing.
True, you can still experience a sense of enjoyment in a familiar tale well-told over and over again, but you can NEVER experience what you would have experienced had you not known what would happen. That comes only once and never again. Spoilers steal away that you-experience-it-only-once chance. Watching the movie "The Sixth Sense" or "The Crying Game" after knowing the "secrets" are still enjoyable, but _different_ from the experience I had when I didn't know.