Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
My only question is, "better why?"
What, specifically, appeals to people about a particular chronology (different than the original publication chronology I mean, of course). Is it merely an OCD-type sense-of-linear-order issue, or is there something else in play?
Does the chronology aspect only come into play with multiple books, or would those who seem to prefer a strict one-way linear chronology like it better if the chapters of individual books were ordered chronologically as well?
Inquiring minds want to know. And I find the topic truly fascinating. 
I run into people whose preferences run counter to my own all the time, but rarely do I encounter ones that I find so utterly foreign and incomprehensible to me. I truly can't seem to get my head around why some would derive a greater sense of satisfaction from books being rearranged into a linear chronology. |
For me, chronological order simply fits my preferences especially when re-reading a series. Some jumping around inside a single book is acceptable when it drives the storyline though I do begin to wonder when 80% of a book consists of flashbacks and/or flashforwards. I also find I don't prefer some of the spoilers intrinsic in reading a book when I have already read a book set in the future of that book. I have unfond memories of one series where a fairly major character in the first book in the series timeline had their death mentioned in the first chapters of the first published but third chronologically in the series. I admit it was a heroic death in the second chronological, fourth in publication order book in the series leading a last stand covering the retreat of the remainder of the survivors but then I already knew that from when his companions drank a toast to his memory.
As for sacredness of publication chronology? To go back to C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia,
The Magician's Nephew was the last book written but the second to last to be published. Then there is
The Horse and His Boy where again, the published and written order were not the same. So which order should I read them in? Written? Published? Or the suggested chronological? Simply admit there is nothing sacred about any order?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Apologies for the lengthy rambling. Yes beer was involved.
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In vino veritas 
Now I want to dig out
Ramblin' Boy by Tom Paxton.