Anyway the question is (or technically questions are): To what extent do you analyze literature? Are you more analytical in your reading if you know you're going to review the book? Is analysis useful in helping you understand and appreciate literature, or does it detract from your readerly experience?
To what extent do I analyze lit? Not as much as I'd like to. Or rather, I wish my analysis was better. My degree is in English Lit, so I can't help but analyze the stuff I read now. But even while I was in school I remember I'd hear someone's insight about a book or a character or a scene and I'd think to myself "Yes! That is so obvious how did I miss it" and then I can never read the book again without hearing that analysis. Maybe there's something about the confidence in the other person's assertion. I might look at a scene and pick it apart, but I'm never sure if I have completely missed something or not. So I guess I miss other people's analysis and the whole classroom discussion thing.
Are you more analytical in your reading if you know you're going to review the book? Since I started this blog I've reviewed every book I've read so at this point how much I analyze a book has nothing to do with if I'm going to review it. I know I'm going to. As to how much analysis do I put into a review, that really depends on the book and the review I plan on writing. In general, if I'm just reviewing a book, I won't go into an analysis of it. I did more analysis earlier in my blog when I would write multiple posts on a single book. Because I've been writing more straight reviews, I write less analysis so I probably read with a less analytical mindset. I'd like to get back into writing these types of posts but they tend to take me much longer to write. I'll start off a post making one point and then half way through writing I'll realize I actually think the opposite is now the case, and I have to rewrite it. Repeat 3 more times.
Is analysis useful in helping you understand and appreciate literature, or does it detract from your readerly experience? It is helpful when understanding and appreciate lit that has something there to analyze. And I guess that is assume with the term "literature" instead of just general books. There are some books that just don't have much there to analyze. And that's fine. Sometime a simple, transparent story is what I want and trying to analyze something that doesn't have the depth for analysis is going to detract from the experience. However if it is a real piece of literature than I think analyzing can help you understand it better and from different points of view.
So what do you think? Are you an analyzer?
