Says who? What if I want to read literature for the plot? What if the excitement of what's going to happen is what I care about, and the characters are just a side thing?

What if some days I want to read for plot, other days I want world building, other days I want character development?

> Learning the plot of a literature book should have no affect in its enjoyment.

And if it does affect it? Should we tell people not to read that book?

In fact, foreknowledge of plot and detail color your experience of reading the book such that successive rereads each have a different character in many cases.

Imagine the first time you read a book like The Time Traveler's Wife, Life of Pi, Never Let Me Go, A Tale of Two Cities, The Count of Monte Cristo, or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Now, imagine the second time reading through any of those books; the experience will be greatly changed by the knowledge and anticipation of what you know is coming.

Some people may not think that change in experience is important, but some definitely will. I don't think there's any reason to look down on either group, nor to look down on people who chose to respect the latter.

"Incidentally, I use the word reader very loosely. Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is—a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed)—a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book."