Comments on: Review: Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James

By: Sarahct

Sarahct — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 05:36:58 +0000

In reply to Jenny. Me too! I don't get all that curious about endings any more, but when I read Jane Eyre for the first time, I was young and I couldn't bear not to know her fate.

By: Review: The Secret History, Donna Tartt « Jenny's Books

Review: The Secret History, Donna Tartt « Jenny's Books — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:02:59 +0000

[…] 29, 2010 by Jenny Yeah, I remember the rule. I remember the exception to the rule. It turns out Animal Farm is exactly what you get when you make rules that you know you want to […]

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:09:44 +0000

In reply to Jenny. Nope, she never tells me the end. I just like to tease her about it :)

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:29:56 +0000

In reply to Memory.

I’ll try it on my puppy when I get home. I know that she will love me no matter what.

Well, you know, I have been reading the end since I was eight, and I have never really done a sustained experiment of reading the “normal” way. In the interests of Science I think it might be worthwhile to try a month of no end-reading, with a wide variety of fiction books to read.

By: Memory

Memory — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 07:15:08 +0000

I kind of want to call somebody a reprehensible expeident now, but I think I’d feel really bad afterwards. Maybe I could try it out on the cat? I don’t think she’d understand me, so there’d be no hurt feelings.

I think you should keep on reading the way you want to read, P.D. James be damned (only not really. Only figuratively. On the damning, I mean, not the reading the way you want).

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:10:40 +0000

In reply to zibilee.

Hahaha, your raspberry-blowing is appreciated. Reading the end does make me more reflective as I’m going along through the book – I especially like it when I first think the ending is disappointing, and then as I go along reading I see more and more why the ending’s going to work. And then it does work! It’s so satisfying.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:09:50 +0000

In reply to Emily.

But does she tell you the ending? If not I think you should live and let live – think of us poor end-readers all shunned and outcast by normal readers. :p

(In the interests of full disclosure, I didn’t read the ends of the Harry Potter books. Except the sixth one, by accident – I was just trying to see if Ginny made it to the end alive, and I accidentally glimpsed a line about who does die in the sixth book.)

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:08:17 +0000

In reply to Nish. I love Agatha Christie too! She writes such good puzzle-type mysteries that I sometimes don't read the end, to see if I can figure out all the clues myself. (Usually no.)

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:07:25 +0000

In reply to Katy.

That’s definitely the writer’s fault, and I also do that kind of end-reading – the kind where I’m thinking the book’s not worth finishing, and I want to confirm it. But overall I do it just cause I like to.

Nobody ever wants to tell me spoilers! I have to ask at least five times, and also, sometimes when people ask me the end of a TV show or film, and I tell them, they freak out! And ask me why I would spoil it for them! Crazy people.

I read Children of Men and didn’t love it. I need to try one of her proper mysteries – Children of Men was more sort of a thriller.

By: zibilee

zibilee — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:56:35 +0000

On occasion, I will skip ahead and read the ending of a book before it’s time, but I don’t do it often. I don’t think it ruins the book for me, and often when I do it, it makes me read and think more consciously about the book, in a good way. I blow raspberries at P.D. James in this instance.