To Write Analysis or Not To Write Analysis… This is something which has bothered me for a long time since I started blogging around 2013.
The purpose for writing Analysis of Fiction is to have thoughts about the stories we read rather than consuming fiction like slop which goes into our eyes and is quickly erased from our memories. In other words, Analysis allows us to savour the feelings which we felt while reading a work of art for longer, even after the immediate afterglow of reading something great has faded.
However, for a long time now I have given up on writing reviews and contemplative pieces of writing about the things which I watch and read. There is a dark side to analysis, and that is that you stop creating anything of your own and end up just becoming a critic of other people’s works and styles or even just a cheerleader (i.e. a fanboy or hater). Youtube video essays these days feel like an endless commentary upon commentary about things which other people have done and created.
In my view the Creator of a thing is of a highest value, he who creates a first hand experience, whereas the critics are just second-handers, leaching off of the creators under the guise of “explaining” the work of art when in fact they are often just replacing it with their own half-baked story on top, either by putting the artist on a pedestal (to put themselves higher through their “higher understanding” of the work) or taking him down. We have reached the absolute nadir of “commentary” with “Recap” episodes which replace the process of experiencing the art by giving it the time it deserves in order to just consume summaries of stories. The audience are people who are clearly not interested to put in the time to read the original and form their own deeper and more substantial opinions. No, instead the goal is to consume the greatest quantity of recap slop in the shortest amount of time; but thinking and creating your own thoughts takes time and reflection which these summaries totally make impossible by replacing that thoughtful understanding with a vague idea.
Indeed I feel that many talented critics have wasted their lives commentating on what other people are doing rather than creating something new of their own in their field. In fact, did they not end up as critics (i.e. cheerleaders) because they couldn’t create something which lived up to their vision immediately and so gave up?
Nevertheless I have found it almost impossible to enjoy anything I am reading without thinking about it at length, and to think about it at length, I need to write about it, which is why I have decided to resume my blogging here and elsewhere. Part of the reason why I want to write fiction is because I enjoy reading, so by robbing myself of the joy of reading I will not make the process of writing fiction any easier for me.
I just hope that by using this website as an outlet, a website which has space for both analysis blogs and original stories, I will be able to focus on both analysis and original creations, because I believe that to have a true understanding of the one you need the other. This is the reason why, if you listen, artists often have the more penetrating thoughts about their craft of art than pure critics who either remain on the surface with their cheap summaries or get lost in their own thoughts which are not even thoughts but just chains of words, by engaging in complexity for its own sake.
