Do you find foot/endnotes more useful, or distracting?

[Dark Muse]

While on the one hand footnotes or endnotes can provide useful background information and historical context within a book and can be helpful in a greater understanding of some things.

I have come to find that they can also be quite distracting in attempting to look them up while I am reading as it interferes with the flow of the story itself whenever I have to stop to look up some foot/endnote. And in a few very rare cases, most recently being my edition of Twenty Years After, I have discovered some foot/endnotes actually give away spoilers to story itself.

So I have recently come up with the system of simply waiting until I have completed a chapter within the book, and then going back and looking up all of the notes that were included within that chapter, that way I get the benefits of their explanations without interrupting my actual reading of the story.

I was curious how other readers make use of foot and or end notes in their reading, and if you find in some cases they can be more distracting than useful. As while reading Twenty Years After I ended up ignoring half the notes in that book, because most of them were really long explanations, and often times they would talk about points in the story which had not happened yet.

[JBI]

I pay more for them, and love them - when I read Shakespeare I don't really use them that often, but they help - when I read Spenser, I rarely don't use them - they all help though. I prefer Footnotes though - Endnotes are a pain in the butt.

[Dark Muse]

I prefer endnotes usually, as it makes it easier that way to look them up after I am done reading, as I don't like being interupted in my reading to keep looking up what the footnotes mean.

[DanielBenoit]

I usually don't mind either, though footnotes are more prefferable for obvious reasons.

Though usually I don't like using them when reading poetry, I absolutley loved the 200 pages of endnotes in Infinite Jest :lol:

[Annamariah]

Endnotes are easier to ignore should you wish to skip them altogether or just check them later, as Dark Muse does. Too much footnotes distract reading and makes it more difficult for the reader to lose themselves in the imaginary world, so I prefer endnotes, if there are plenty of them. If there's just a couple of them in the whole book, I prefer normal footnotes.

At the moment I'm reading Pamela by Samuel Richardson (in English), and the endnotes do help a lot, for to begin with I was a bit afraid I might not understand everything, as it is a very old book and English is a foreign language to me. It was a pleasant surprise to realise that I understand it very well, and with the help of the endnotes even better.

In translations footnotes are sometimes a must. For example in the Finnish edition of Jane Eyre the part where they play charades is explained with a simple footnote "bride = morsian, well = kaivo, bridewell = kuritushuone". If the translator wouldn't have done that, she would have had to rewrite several pages of a classic to come up with a wordplay that would have worked in Finnish :p In general they are avoided as much as possible, though.

[mal4mac]

I prefer footnotes to end notes. Sometimes a note is essential while you are reading. You cannot leave them 'til later, unless you are happy to live in a fog on a first reading, and then clear the fog on your second reading. I'm not prepared to do that, as I don't want to re-read all books. I want to "get them" first time.

Footnotes also tend to be short! I really dislike end notes that go on for pages, spouting useless detail, when all you want is a sentence telling you that "Chaadayev is a Westernizer". (This example comes from Penguins' "Demons", a good example of how not to add notes to novel...)

Two works with great footnotes:

RSC Complete Shakespeare
Grossman's translation of Don Quixote

I also like translations that pull information into the text, making footnotes unnecessary. A great example of this is Coulson's Crime & Punishment which, for instance, translates "Zimmermann's" as "Zimmerman's famous hat shop". In other translations you have to trek to the note in the back telling you it's a famous hat shop! And, if really unlucky, they give you its ownership history with a map...

The Barnes & Noble classics have Garnett's friendly Dostoevsky translations with light footnotes added, which seems an ideal solution. No more flicking to the back for French translations!

Any other examples of great translations with good, light footnotes?

[Madame X]

Whether a foot or an end note, it doesn’t make any difference to me, I use ‘em when I need ‘em without much incident. I am, however, a firm ignorer of introductions since it always seems that whichever esteemed author, professor, critic, etc, has been commissioned for the job feels the need to expound on how terrific the text you’re about to read is precisely by telling you everything, of importance, that happens in it anyway. Of course you can always go back to the introduction when you're done, but then, unless you're hankering for a bit of affected adulation :angel:, what's the point once you've read the book yourself?

[The Comedian]

I greatly enjoy them, and vastly prefer footnotes because they immediately gratify. Endnotes demand tedious and tiresome flipping to the back of the book every time to check a reference. My copy of The Count of Monte Cristo has endnotes, and I nearly got a different copy due to this fact.

[mal4mac]

I greatly enjoy them, and vastly prefer footnotes because they immediately gratify. Endnotes demand tedious and tiresome flipping to the back of the book every time to check a reference. My copy of The Count of Monte Cristo has endnotes, and I nearly got a different copy due to this fact.

The Barnes & Noble has footnotes. How does the translation compare to yours?

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Fnv4xKC9hxoC

Another good publisher that tends to do footnotes is Hackett.

Does anyone know of a version of Ulysses with footnotes?

[Manchegan]

I usually enjoy footnotes, but some people go way overboard. I had a textbook once that used footnotes to define every word above an 8th grade reading level. I'm so used to checking the foot note and expecting valuable information that I couldn't help but look, and low and behold I was rewarded with an explanation that meticulous means overly concerned with details. Thank you, college text book foot notes. :brickwall

The version of Dante I read (forget who translated) had really good endnotes at the end of every canto. For that work, I think endnotes worked better because I don't really care who exactly every Florentine clerk was, but I could skim the endnotes for any explanation of greek allusions (I suck at the greeks) or details on dante's life.

[Dark Muse]

I prefer footnotes to end notes. Sometimes a note is essential while you are reading. You cannot leave them 'til later, unless you are happy to live in a fog on a first reading, and then clear the fog on your second reading. I'm not prepared to do that, as I don't want to re-read all books. I want to "get them" first time.

I haven't read much, that left me feeling as if I were in a complete and total fog just becasue I did not immediately look up what the note was, and if it is something that I feel I need or want instant gratification on, I don't really mind look back to the end notes to see what it was.

[mayneverhave]

It depends on the work really. With Shakespeare (at least for my Norton ed.) the footnotes are beneficial and rarely distracting, and, after a while, unnecessary. The Arden Shakespeare provides far more footnotes and, therefore, are generally better for a close reading at least until you are familiar with them enough to ignore them outright (which is the ultimate purpose of all footnotes).



The version of Dante I read (forget who translated) had really good endnotes at the end of every canto. For that work, I think endnotes worked better because I don't really care who exactly every Florentine clerk was, but I could skim the endnotes for any explanation of greek allusions (I suck at the greeks) or details on dante's life.

The Signet Divine Comedy (tr. Ciardi) uses end notes for every canto which are by far more annoying than footnotes, although they are generally much more thorough. Are some taken overboard? Yes, and the translator admits this on several occasions. If we are to prefer close readings to loose readings, however, more information is preferable to less.

On the whole, I prefer having notes to not having notes. My edition of T.S. Eliot's Complete Poems has absolutely no footnotes or end notes, which requires me to look up references online.

[Pollopicu]

I appreciate and prefer endnotes and footnotes. It's there if I choose to read it or not. I don't find it distracting at all.

[higley]

I am a fan of footnotes! Every time I see the little number denoting a helpful fact just waiting for me at the bottom of the page I'm happy to see them. Endnotes, however, lazy things, want me to come to them and that's too much effort going into the relationship.

[Annamariah]

It makes flipping to the back so much easier if you just put your bookmark to the endnotes page you're currently on while you read :p

[mal4mac]

I usually enjoy footnotes, but some people go way overboard. I had a textbook once that used footnotes to define every word above an 8th grade reading level... :brickwall

... I don't really care who exactly every Florentine clerk was...

Very good points. The RSC Complete Shakespeare manages to skate between the Sylla and Charybdis of the notes being too simple, and the notes being too detailed (for the reasonably well read adult common reader.)

I'm looking for a Dante that doesn't give the biography of every minor Florentine clerk. Mandelbaum's Everyman Dante seems the closest, but it's still a bit too detailed, and it has endnotes rather than footnotes.

Musa's "Portable Dante" has footnotes but looking at the first few pages they are either a) too detailed b) non-existent e.g. I need to be told that the 'shining planet' is the Sun (Musa), but I don't need a lecture on Ptolemaic astronomy (Mandelbaum)

Some enterprising publisher should get Bate and Rasmussen to help a Dante scholar to produce decent notes for the "common reader"...

[Dark Muse]

On the whole, I prefer having notes to not having notes. My edition of T.S. Eliot's Complete Poems has absolutely no footnotes or end notes, which requires me to look up references online.

I am a big one for doing additional outside reasearch one some of the stuff I read. I keep post it notes inside some of my books whee I jot down, words, phrases, names, etc.. of things to go and look up.

[mal4mac]

If we are to prefer close readings to loose readings, however, more information is preferable to less.

Do more notes lead to closer readings? You may find yourself drowning in useless information, which leads to exasperation and may lead you to rushing through the main text. I found this with the "most scholarly" Arden Hamlet, and switched to the RSC Hamlet. Things got much better, I seemed to be reading the actual text at a more leisurely pace, without being interrupted by Gradgrind scholarship. That's a closer reading of what actually matters!

[mayneverhave]

There's no rule saying that you must read every single footnote. Footnotes are something that should eventually (for the ideal reader) be overcome, as the reader eventually absorbs the information and thereby becomes more knowledgeable on the subject.

There is no difference in reading the text of the Arden Hamlet vs the RSC Hamlet. If you dislike footnotes, don't read them.

[shapeshifter_]

actually it depends on the work i am reading. if i am not familiar with the subject or if the plot or the language is more complicated footnotes help me so much. but in novels and the kind, i try not to pay attention to them . i remember reading a book by Ahmet Mithat Efendi (a turkish writer, plywright and assai writer who was born in 1844 in istanbul ), his language contained just too much french words that is beyond understanding. that's why there were too many footnotes in the book. and i stopped reading the book and started writing down the french words and phrases :D by the way i was only 14 then :D

[dfloyd]

My first time through Don Quixote, the edition I was reading had both footnotes and end of chapter notes. I found them very helpful, but ignored them the second time through about five years later.

My copy of Herodotus has marginal notes which I found very helpful.

I have all the Dumas' D'Artagnan Romaces of which Twenty Years After is the second of five, unless you consider the Vicomte de Bragelonne, with its three volumes to be all one book. Frankly, unles you are totally unfamiliar with French history, and English history of the reigns of Charles I and II, you probably don't need to read the footnotes. These are usually given in the Oxford classics, but are not required. Unless you are determined to read all the D'Artagnan Romances, skip the Vicomte de Bragelonne and Louise de Valliere. The former is Athos' son and the latter is his love who becomes Louis IV's mistress. These are quite boring to all but the confirmed Dumas' addict. Go to the last book in the series, The Man in the Iron Mask. This book returns to the excitement of The Three Musketeers and finishes out the series with the death of D'Artagnan. Happy reading!

[mona amon]

I usually ignore them, or I'd never finish the Shakespeare play, or whatever. Sometimes I have to read them, like with Canterbury Tales. Maybe that's why I wasn't able to read more than two. :)

[mal4mac]

I usually ignore them, or I'd never finish the Shakespeare play, or whatever. Sometimes I have to read them, like with Canterbury Tales. Maybe that's why I wasn't able to read more than two. :)

In some Arden editions it's difficult to dig out *just* the information you want. If you just want a quick reminder about who Theseus you is, you might be forced to read through an essay on Greek mythology.

The RSC Complete Shakespeare is excellent at just giving you that quick reminder, and nothing else, making it (almost) a doddle to "finish the play". I might, for the first time, actually get through a "complete Shakespeare"! In fact, miracles of mirackes, I don't think I can fail to so with this edition. It's actually a continuous joy to read it, with none of the spade-work scholarship that makes other editions a difficult read.

On the Canterbury Tales, try Peter Ackroyd's new "translation". No footnotes and you don't need them! I'm on to the third tale and it's easier than reading Ian McEwan... more fun too...

[curlyqlink]

I find footnotes a distraction and a nuisance. Much prefer endnotes; I can much more easily ignore a little number at the end of a sentence than additional text at the bottom of the page. If there is text at the bottom of the page, my eye is drawn to read it, and it disrupts the flow of the prose.

I particularly hate footnotes that explain the obvious. The worst offender I've yet encountered is my (B&N bargain) edition of Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt. The editor felt compelled to footnote the obvious, like "sleeping porch" ("before air conditioning, many homes had porches for sleeping during the summer").

Then there are the editors who like to show off their specialized knowledge and the pains they have taken researching; as for example when a character picks up a magazine, and they footnote it to inform the reader of the dates of publication, who the editor was, etc., etc.

[My name is red]

for me endnotes are distracting and i like footnotes.But when there is too much of it,i just get bored easily.In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,there were tones of footnotes and to be honest i couldn't deal with them and abandoned the book.

[mal4mac]

I find footnotes a distraction and a nuisance. Much prefer endnotes; I can much more easily ignore a little number at the end of a sentence than additional text at the bottom of the page. If there is text at the bottom of the page, my eye is drawn to read it, and it disrupts the flow of the prose.


I don't find that at all. If I need the text at the bottom then I use, if not then I just ignore it. In some texts (Shakespeare, Dostoevsky's "Demons") I need help several times on most pages. Flipping back and forward several times for each page is immensely frustrating.



I particularly hate footnotes that explain the obvious. The worst offender I've yet encountered is my (B&N bargain) edition of Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt. The editor felt compelled to footnote the obvious, like "sleeping porch" ("before air conditioning, many homes had porches for sleeping during the summer").


I dislike that as well. I'm British and we don't have sleeping porches (not with our weather!) but I think even a foreigner like me could guess the meaning... I can handle a small number of idiocies like this, as I only look at footnotes if I am truly stuck. But books with a large number of footnotes like this really grate.



Then there are the editors who like to show off their specialized knowledge and the pains they have taken researching; as for example when a character picks up a magazine, and they footnote it to inform the reader of the dates of publication, who the editor was, etc., etc.

Yes! That's even worse. But editors can steer between "stating the obvious" and "pedantic scholarship". I've seen it done (RSC Complete Shakespeare, Grossman Don Quixote...) In these cases would you not admit footnotes are useful? Have you any examples of books where the footnotes/endnotes have been handled well? I'm especially looking for versions of "Ulysses" and "The Divine Comedy" with such notes.

P.S. "Norton Critical" can be a real pain in relation to footnotes, both stating the obvious and showing off their scholarship far too often.

[balehead]

I don't mind footnoes because if I don't understand something, I can generally look to the bottom of the page and it will dawn on me ... but end notes are a nuisance; because I am simply too lazy to flick to the back of the book and discover that which I do not understand

[mona amon]

In some Arden editions it's difficult to dig out *just* the information you want. If you just want a quick reminder about who Theseus you is, you might be forced to read through an essay on Greek mythology.

The RSC Complete Shakespeare is excellent at just giving you that quick reminder, and nothing else, making it (almost) a doddle to "finish the play". I might, for the first time, actually get through a "complete Shakespeare"! In fact, miracles of mirackes, I don't think I can fail to so with this edition. It's actually a continuous joy to read it, with none of the spade-work scholarship that makes other editions a difficult read.

Sounds really good! Hope my library will have it. :)