I'm not badly-read, but I go into avoidance mode when confronted with novels with footnotes. It's a bit neanderthal? How do you it? I plan to read them afterwards, so you can select what's interesting or not.
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depends if theyre important
but read them when you see them when you turn the page is a good enough tactic i think, means the whole interrupting the flow isnt so bad.
i dont like footnotes in anything though.
footnotes aren't that bad
endnotes on the other hand, are the work of the devil.
^aye
Yes.
It made reading Dostoyevsky that little bit less enjoyable.
You know what? FUCK Nevsky Prospekt.
same with fucking bleak house
oh the horror
Ergh Jane Eyre was horrible for this,
endnote after bloody endnote...drove me mad it did.
i only read them if i feel that i haven't fully grasped the
section annotated, or if i'm reading for an academic purpose and the footnotes give useful critical comment.
academically
it's fine. I'll read what I need to know and what I haven't fully understand or what will enhance my understanding of a passage
With novels, I find it quite difficult.
really?
i really just don't notice them unless i choose to read them, and when i do i don't find it harms the flow. i read extremely quickly though, maybe that is partly why. i dunno.
i guess the main text is the baseline
and I usually take notes to be almost a secondary text - if we're talking about a book like 'Infinite Jest'
unless they use really difficult language
or are talking about something that very few people know about, in which case explanatory footnotes are very helpful.
like when i read robinson crusoe, it was nice that they explained the context of certain things, etc.
same with lord of the rings
there's a whole load of extra details to make you understand the story.
replying to myself
finished the next chapter on my blog-based story
http://funchforlunch.blogspot.com/
no footnotes on here
depends if the footnotes are part of the author's design
this is a massive, massive fallacy
You obviously never read The Athenian Murders
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Athenian-Murders-Jose-Carlos-Somoza/dp/0349116180/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213051315&sr=8-1
The footnotes are part of the story in a very important way.
i'm not disputing that footnotes can't be part of the design.
what i am disputing is that one shouldn't read footnotes that aren't part of the 'authors design', because that is silly. the 'authors design' may have assumed certain knowledge that some readerships won't have, in which case the footnotes allow it to be read more closely to the 'authors design'. in short, footnotes merely elucidate. some will already know their content, some will not. ergo, they can't ruin the book by the information they contain.
subject line should say 'can'
Err. But that doesn't follow from what Tristan said.
"How do you read novels with footnoots?"
"depends if the footnotes are part of the author's design"
At no point did he say he only reads them if they're part of the author's design, he's implying how you read them should depend on if they are the author's notes or if they're an editor's notes for the help of the reader, surely?
i don't see why it would affect you either way,
really, beyond very, very minor exceptions.
Well for example
there are footnotes in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books and in the Discworld novels.
They're funny and essentially a continuation of the text as an aside so you'd read those immediately upon catching the note.
Whereas my HP Lovecraft is full of footnotes, most of which are just explaining that such and such isn't a spelling mistake but an archaic spelling, or that this area is clearly based on this real location. You can safely save these until you've finished the page or the current section.
but (and since we're talking about footnotes
as part of the 'authors design') doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of them being footnotes. if the author places footnotes, presumably the anticipation is that those footnotes will be read as footnotes. if you read them differently to how you read other footnotes, then why bother them being there as footnotes in the first place? footnotes footnotes footnotes.
you stil troubled by infinite jest then?
just read them when they present themselves and it will be worth it. The best bit of the book
what was your text about a few minutes earlier?
I really enjoy it, but the effort scares me
no idea
im glad of the use of the word journaliste but it no longer makes sense
yeahe welle donee youe linguiste
howe wase youre nighte?
quitee oke
ear uyo ggoin to tstokfes?
tmee pu rfo a kdrin fi i tge pu ni etim? yprobabl twon hthoug
Ie thinke you note understande
bute yese ohe joye toe heare thee bongoee/ Ie shalle bee theree enjoymente lee sone callede Luciene et lese fils callede Saffye. Fuckee lae voituree
oui, fuckeee lae voituree
là où est ma chat?
la mort au croc monsieur!
voyez ce que j'ai fait là ?
lolzee
bongoee si epur xjoyeu!
I don't actually comprehend pas
mais nevermind le Nirvana le Kurdt Cobain le cool twatte au shotgun au that man au seven up fuck what was he called filo fils? avec crappe dyee tshirt?
aucune idee, mon cherie
idof idod?
ou est mki ngordo?
'uyo tdon ehav ot eb a kroc rsta, tkurd!'
I genuinely dont comprehend pas
you twatte I was being fairly comprehensibleeeeeee le tres fromage dans le musique folk
tu as twatte-spaz
:(
quelle homme in tie dye? non comprehend! bongoes trop fromage
I love reading them
When I was reading La-Bas it had loads of footnotes.... Well they were endnotes really. And they were really interesting, you got to know more about certain references etc.
are you kidding?
i love a novel with footnotes. more novels should have footnotes, then i might actually read them.
Buy the green Penguin books
They have nothing in them of any help to the reader.
I'm reading World War Z at the moment and tend to..........
read the footnotes at the end of each page rather than at the moment that the footnote appears in the text.
Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
This book is footnote hell. I wasnt laughing when i read it.
If you don't like footnotes
never read House of Leaves :D
i was just going to post this :D
it's basically half footnotes half novel. But footnotes are good!
I like my historical fiction
like the Flashman books. In them, I find the footnotes are really interesting and a good educational complement to the rest of the books which are largely composed of whoring and fighting/running away from fights.
except they aren't footnotes
they're endnotes, which is fine because they're too detailed to go as footnotes.
Okay, I lied, I have read plenty of novels with footnotes
and enjoyed them but not the supposedly important ones like House of Leaves etc...
Endnotes are manageable.
I was just wonderng if there is a more efficient way of reading a novel with footnotes? Also, it's quite interesting hearing how other people read such novels
* interesting if you're a dork like me
I usually read them as I'm going along
particularly if they're going to help me understand something a little better, or explain an outdated concept or reference. Have you seen the updated footnoted/prologued/epilogued version of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? It's a little OTT in places, but generally very funny, all the added footnotes etc are mostly worth reading.
agreed
the footnotes in AHWOSG are great
i don't have time to read novels... :(
just papers/articles/meh
and they all involve footnotes. but i actually love them! very informative, without clouding the main txt and drowning it in blah blah facts (which are important, but often take away from the fluidity of the work i feel...)
only revolutions
another book by mark z. danielewski... it doesnt have footnotes as such, but you have to keep flipping the book and reading two people's stories at the same time. it does get confusing, especially if you can't remember how many pages you're read of one person's story.
good book though, but not quite as good as house of leaves.