Did Sebastian Faulks ever ruin your life, too?

Astonishinly, I'm on 7 885 words for NaNoWriMo, and I'm thinking it might be vaguely possible to get to 10 000 before I go to bed. Don't get any wrong ideas, these are not good words. Subtle, they ain't, but I have an idea that I I am pleased with, and post-November I'll be in a better position to sort something out. What is even more shocking is that I managed to do that on top of managing to get all the logs moved with Big C today. Over six hours it took, and we're both aching now. But it's done. Once they're spilt, we'll be ready for winter.

For now, Sebastian Faulks, the King of Spoilers. 

As you know, I'm reading Clarissa. The point of reading it, initially, was for the challenge. I would feel good if I read Clarissa. I never expected I would feel good while I read Clarissa. I never actually thought, no, it did not cross my mind that I would enjoy it. But I am, I love it. I think at the end of it, it will rank as one of my favouite books of all time (not that I could tell anyone that because they would think I was showing off). And, what was glorious for me, was I hadn't a clue what happened. The only plot detail I knew (which I will not share, because I'm not an utter bastard like Faulks) wasn't entirely unexpected. I wouldn't have necessarily guessed it would happen from the start, but, half-way through, it's pretty clear that it's coming. It does, not did it, do me any harm to know this plot detail.

But what Faulks gave away was pretty unforgiveable. I know how it ends. I don't know how it gets to the stage it gets to (and if anyone tells me in this comment thread I will do awful things with your IP address, and do not think for a second that I won't), but yes, I know how it ends. Any doubts, questions, or hopes I have along the way of the final half have been answered prematurely by the smuggness pictured above.

Did anyone used to watch Friends? Do you remember the one where Joey reads Little Women? Here's a reminder:

RACHEL: Beth dies.
JOEY: Beth, Beth dies?
RACHEL: Um-hmm.
JOEY: Is that true? If I keep reading is Beth gonna die?
CHANDLER: No, Beth doesn't die, she doesn't die. Does she Rachel?
RACHEL: What?!
ROSS: Joey's asking if you've just ruined the first book he's ever loved that didn't star Jack Nicholson?
RACHEL: No. She doesn't die.
JOEY: Then why would you say that?!
RACHEL: Because, I wanted to hurt you.

Well, Faulks there has hurt me, and joking aside, I think ruining plots is pretty damn unforgiveable. And it's not like I went looking for it: I was reading Faulks on Fiction and when I saw there was a chapter on Robert Lovelace I knew to avoid it. Little did I know he would randomly mention Clarissa in another chapter (actually, I should have known, it was a chapter on Tom Jones, but, ok, I didn't: I didn't know. Shoot me.)

So, right now, Faulks is in my mind worse than Lovelace for ruining lovely things. Sometimes, it is unavoidable: it's not just Faulks out to ruin your reading experience, there are a whole host of others (the academics being the worst of them) who seem more intent on letting you know they've read it and know what's happened. That is why I never read introductions before I read the actual novel. Of course, sometimes it's not a specific someone who spoils the end, most of the time it's just common knowledge. I mean, you'd have to be... I don't know what you have to be to not know what happens in Romeo and Juliet, for example. When you read the classics, a lot of the time you know at least one of the major plot details, if not the ending. It is one of those things. But Clarissa isn't Romeo and Juliet, and whilst a lot of you might already knows how it ends without having read it (or having read it), I didn't and I am the one reading it, and I'm amazed that I would at random stumble upon the end.

And I get it: I get Faulks on Fiction is not about ruining your life, he didn't set out to spoil people's books. But honestly, how annoying that he did. And of all the books, it had to be this one.

You should never spoil anyone's book, people. Not even if you hate them.