The Spoiler Problem

Spoiler alert! (possibly necessary)

I've just started reading John Grisham's The Associate. I'm reading it because someone gave me a book token and having read nearly everything by Grisham I like to try and keep up. I knew nothing about the book before starting beyond knowing Grisham's usual favourite subjects. Having got through the opening chapters I then read the blurb on the back, which basically sets out the plot. I am very glad I read those opening chapters without it as at first it seems to be quite a different book and so I was able to enjoy the main characters own confusion much more than I would have if I had read the blurb. This is a general problem with fiction, of course. How much do you give away?

I will never forget the surprise and joy one night when, having been dragged off to see Enchanted the cartoon suddenly (and for me quite unexpectedly) turned from a second rate cartoon into a well crafted live action film!

The subject also reminds of how I once watched the 1984 film Passage to India which was rather spoiled for me because I had read some blurb about another film of the same year, Jewel in the Crown, and assumed it applied to the former. Both set in India the films have some similarities in their plot lines but are far from identical.

So what do we actually do about it? People are generally aware of the problem and so the use of the words "spoiler alert" as above are now quite common. Part of the problem is that sometimes it is useful to know ahead the subject matter or certain plot turns and sometimes it isn't.

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One application of all this is to reading the Bible. I well remember doing a Bible study at a camp once and a teenage girl finding out that Noah got drunk after he came from the ark. She greeted the news with all the disappointment it deserves. Similarly, I remember my mother telling me how when she first read from Scripture the life of David, she kept thinking "God's not going to forgive him this time - and yet he does!" Priceless. On the negative side I remember hearing someone doing a children's talk and mentioning the death of Lazarus as a rather inconsequential thing (probably because he knew what was coming next). Somehow as we read the Bible we need to keep it fresh even though we know it so well. Blessed are the poor in spirit!! A Samaritan! The father ran to him? You know what I mean.