A Beautiful Introduction

My new copy of The Last Unicorn begins with an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. I have never read Rothfuss’ work before but having now read his love letter to The Last Unicorn, one of his titles will surely join my bookshelf this year.

Admittedly, writing a review after his introduction is a little intimidating. I strongly agree with Rothfuss’ protestations that too many introductions contain important spoilers (thanks a bunch, The Handmaid’s Tale, Vintage 2017). I also agreed that many introductions try too hard to shape the reader’s understanding, or exist purely to show off how smart the writer of the introduction is by their fancy comparisons between the text and modern thinking.

“More often you get someone desperate to make sure you read the book in the proper way.”
– Patrick Rothfuss, February 2022, in Introduction, The Last Unicorn, Gollancz, 2022.

What It Means to Review or to Introduce a Text

These ideas have played on my mind. I’ve since struggled with writing this review, which has since become an entire post of its own. Then I realised—an introduction should be very different to a review by nature. An introduction comes before, a review comes after. ‘Review’ comes from the French, ‘Revoir’, ‘to see again’.

Whether ‘to see again’ refers to the writer or the reader of the review (or both) is something to think about. I would argue both, but the rest of the world might not.

The modern review has two forms. The essays that I like to write, that talk about the individual quirks of a tale, its morality and ethics, failures and successes. And then there’s the other type of review; a vague summary that tells the reader whether they should be bother reading/watching the text or not. There are people using reviews as introductions, and there are introductions that read like reviews because they spoil far too much.

Perhaps the writer of a review is the one ‘seeing again’, as they remember the text while they write their review. They bring the text back to life through their own writing. But the reader is only ‘seeing again’ if they watch the text before they read the review.

My Stance on Reviewing

With the mixing of introductions and reviews, it’s no wonder that Rothfuss’ words impacted my ability to write this week. I need a word to describe think pieces that are intended to be read after the individual has experienced the text. I want to encourage my readers to form their own opinions before consulting mine—or anyone else’s, for that matter.

In any case, my use of the word ‘review’ on this blog will mean a thought piece that you should interact with after completing the subject text. Nonetheless, I’m going to feel the need to keep the spoilers ahead warnings… too many people use reviews when they should be looking for introductions.