Hmm - I think stuff outside of "what's on the page" can greatly increase your enjoyment. In fact it does - and not just of written work. Think about how much your enjoyment of firefly was enhanced by familiarity with Western and Science Fiction tropes and tell me me that only "what was on the screen" counted. Not that you couldn't enjoy Firefly without that information - but it really gave you access to whole layers of fun that would not have been there otherwise.

It becomes clear to me why I don't want to analyze literature. It is like knowing details about an actor or actresses' life. It does nothing to improve my appreciation of Buffy To know that Alyson and Alex were hooked up in real life. Digging into the thought processes of an author? Same deal.

Yeah, but that's not necessarily required in discussing literature. You can spend a lot of time talking about a text without once mentioning the author's life or her relationship with her mother.

My book is not 1893. It is 1887. I have a book that is 117 years old. I'm boggled.

Ye gods. And I care so much that my copy of Wuthering Heights is 55 years old.

No, it's not in a case at all (that was Mr. H's humidor, but I thought it made a good background). I picked it up at a booksale ages ago. I'm going through some of the other books on that shelf to see what else we've got.

Like,3 well preserved volumes of War and Peace from 1899.

I think the oldest book I have is Queechy by Elizabeth Wetherell, it's 1852.

King Solomon's Mine was first published in 1885/1886. Cool.

There's no date on mine. I had to go by the publisher and cover art.

t twitching in old, fancy book acquisitiveness So, um, Heather, where does that book live in your house? What's your address? t checking that "books" aren't listed in that list in the Ten Commandents with the ass and the wife and the maidservant

There's no date on mine. I had to go by the publisher and cover art.

Yeah, I actually don't think this Wuthering Heights is that old. The foreword is copyrighted 1959, and that's the only date given, but I just saw it's the tenth printing, so it's probably only thirty or forty years old. It's a Signet classic.

You can have my ass, connie, just not my book.

I keep meaning to get into the critcism=knowing what the actors do off-set. I think that's a bad analogy. We talk about Buffy in terms of not just what's on the screen, but what it says about the high school experience, growing up, pain, etc. We have arguments about the language. We talk about what it means that Angel grew up in a certain time and in a certain place and what Drusilla's religion meant to what she became as a vampire. We discuss what the show says about good and evil and all that lies in between. Soul having vs. not soul having. How is that different from picking apart a book?