Preface to a Book Not Yet Written (William Saroyan)
Preface to a Book Not Yet Written
Overland Monthly. August 1928
I am writing this preface to a book before the book has been commenced or planned. I haven't as yet the slightest idea as to what the book is going to be like and I frankly do not care. A preface, I hold, is a complete work in itself and has nothing at all, or very little, to do with the book it precedes. On second thought I may be wrong in this and probably am.
In any event the reason I have decided to write this preface before the book is that I want it to help me in planning the book. I suppose if I say I am going to do certain worth-while things in the following pages I must necessarily stick to my word, and in that way the book as a whole may prove itself a little less dull than it might otherwise have been. For instance, if in this preface I were to boldly write that not a single sentence in the book was to be uninteresting I might actually try to make every sentence interesting (which would be impossible) and in the end I would probably find that I had written a few more interesting sentences that I would have written had I not made an impossible statement. Personally I would really like to write a book which would be entertaining from the first sentence of the preface to the last sentence of the last chapter in which among other words would appear the words "but in generic abstractions, you must come down from your mount, or you are lost in the darkness of its top." So that is precisely the reason for this early, very early, preface.
Besides it has been a more or less secret ambition of mine to write a book from the very first page to the last and as I have observed that prefaces come first in books I decided that I would write that portion of the book first in spite of convention and the ultimate appearance of the book which might for this reason be ridiculous. But, I am reminded, there is at least entertainment in the ridiculous and I am not afraid to go on with a smile.
In writing my preface first there will be little possibility of any misunderstanding on my part as to what it is I am supposed to do. That is a fact probably more important than it at first sounds for I have a most annoying habit of commencing a story about certain common people of America today and ending it with a lot of characters almost bodily taken from the works of James Branch Cabell for instance. For this reason I change Henry Hanson's name to Guivric of Djardvoord. The habit is annoying, I insist, because in spite of the fact that I have changed poor Henry's name he remains the idiot Henry has always been. I do not think it is good sense to let a fellow with a name like Guivric of Djardvoord act like an ass. So you see I have good reason for writing this preface a little earlier than usual.
But the principal reason I am writing this preface first is that I prefer prefaces to books any day. I have made it a point in my readings to first read the preface and if I find it at all worth reading I then casually glance at the first and last pages of the book and tell everybody I've finished it. I wouldn't think of really trying to read any book straight through because no book can possibly be interesting from the first page to the last and if it is interesting on any pages at all they are bound to be the pages of the preface.
It is difficult enough to make the first and last pages of the preface interesting, let alone all the rest of the pages of the book, in which such queer things as characters and motives and plots and dialogue enter into the thing. I thank the good Lord that there are no scenes to prefaces or I would never commence this book. I do not like scenes in literature and if it is ever going to be necessary for me to describe anything whatsoever in the following pages I am going to try to find the shortest distance between a couple of point. (To be sure, I cannot say now what I am going to do in the following pages but you can rest assured that I am not going to do any elaborate scenes of lakes or gardens or city streets. Everybody's already seen a lake or two and dirty streets and parks and things of that sort. If they haven't, however, I would suggest they go out at their next opportunity and take a good, long look at a lake. THere is nothing like taking a good, long look at a lake once in a while.)
Another reason I like the idea of writing this preface before commencing the book is that I can say in a preface a few things I would be unable to say in the book. For instance, I could not possibly have some of the heroes of this book say different things about prefaces. (There are going to be a great many good heroes in this book. In fact, if possible every character will be a hero.) I would like to prove that that sort of thing could be done, too. There have been books in which every character was a villain, after a fashion all his own, but I have not yet heard of a book in which all the characters are heroes, but in the event that there is such a book of which I have not heard (which is more than likely) I will not by any means be outdone, for in that case I will make heroes of everything in my book. Such as, the street cars, butterflies, phonographs or buildings.
As I have said I could not very well have one of my characters step out of his character for a moment, as it is often done on the stage, and make a bright remark on prefaces for me, as that is not the way things are done. At least, not the way things are done regarding prefaces. I could easily have any character jump up somewhere and say, "Prohibition is a joke and any man who says otherwise is a damn liar!" without violating the rules of literary etiquette, but I could not, for example, have some fellow say, "The fact that a preface comes first in the pages of any book would indicate that it is vastly more important than anything that follows it." I don't even know any character who'd be willing to say such a thing and if I forced him to, immediately the reader would be aware of the fact.
I could, I guess, have my characters say almost anything they liked except something about prefaces. People busy living do not ordinarily think of prefaces at all. (Sometimes they don't even think.) I know of a fellow who goes around telling people he hasn't thought since 1907. He says he thought a terrible lot until 1907, often staying awake all night, tossing about in his bed, thinking hard. But by the time 1907 had come around, upon finding that in spite of all his thinking the world had not changed in the least for the better, this man figured it was no use, and so right then and there he quit thinking for good, and now he weighs a good 250 pounds while until 1907 he weighed only about 122.
The best place to say anything about a preface is right in the preface. George Bernard Shaw knows what a preface is for. I think Mr. Shaw believes that in case his plays are not liked at least his prefaces will be. That is a fine attitude to take and should be followed, I believe, by more writers. Mr. Shaw wants everybody to be satisfied so he has his play for one portion of the people and his preface for another, and in that way no one is left unentertained.
Another idea has just occurred to me. I do not see that it would do any harm to place a short preface before each chapter of a book as well as before the book. I think I *will* put a little preface before each chapter of my book so that the reader can be well prepared for what is to follow and why. It has been an old custom to place classical verse before each chapter of most books but no one has yet thought of putting a preface there. That is my own idea. The other writers are afraid, I suppose, that if a preface or explanation were to be placed before each chapter it might render the entire theme incomprehensible, but I am afraid that unless i did so that would certainly be the case.
This being so I can see that my book will be more a preface than a book and this as it should be fore I prefer prefaces to books any day.
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