Thread:WorshipperOfTheOldReligion/@comment-4062486-20120916190521/@comment-5191335-20120920131149

I like analyzing books too! It's like analyzing the writing can help you understand the author - an exercise in psychology. It's amazing how subtle details, grammatical structure, dialogue, details of major or minor characters, setting, structure, mood, voice, etc. can tell you so much about the author, the world the author lived in and observed, and his/her life, experiences, and beliefs! Like how Virginia Woolf was a lesbian, closeted by her time period, but she left clues about her sexuality in most of her books and even used one to more obviously explore homosexual themes. And like how Shakespeare wrote some of his best tragedies just after the death of his son. And like how Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller's The Crucible, though both set in Puritan societies, both reflect the political upheaval and social unrest of the time period each author observed while writing their own respective book. Writers may be psychologists, as they understand the motivations of humanity enough to write very real, evocative stories, but those who analyze books are psychologist as we attempt to find the human behind and between the lines of writing.