Exploiting Literature

I hate analyzing literature. No, I'm lying: I hate overanalyzing literature. I'll buy coffee, or, dream big: I'll buy PIZZA for whoever shares with me the LOGIC behind sitting in a room and attempting to interpret the reason why the author placed a comma where he placed it or why he chose one word instead of another. It makes it really hard to appreciate the novel. The themes, symbols, and metaphors make the text richer and more meaningful, and I'm all for that, but there's no reason to pick at them like they're a piece of lettuce stuck between teeth. The mere act of searching for symbolism is like searching for a significant other: it kills the whole experience.

For example, when people want to find a date and use online dating services (or any kind of service) to do so, it becomes something unnatural. You're forcing love based on similar tastes and traits, you're not feeling it through chemistry or a natural attraction. You would basically be forcing yourself to fall in love. It's the same with incessantly searching for metaphors and symbols in books. If the author wants you to see it, it will be there. Right there. You shouldn't have to sound like you're on an LSD trip when you're talking about what you think one word could mean. Let's be honest here; if you write a 50,000 word novel you're not thinking about what each individual word could mean in a thousand different interpretations. Forcing yourself to find meaning kills the whole purpose of that meaning being there.

A theme or an idea that is planted in a text is not there to be dug up, extracted, and exploited like gold in a virgin land. It is there to leave behind an effect, or an aftertaste of the idea; the true essence of something the author strongly believes in. If the reader becomes psycho about finding things that might not even be there, they'll miss the point. 

And to think that during that wasted time they could be reading another book, or falling in love.