I am often amazed how people, such as my wife, seem to think that words simply come out of the air and onto paper, that there is no craft in placing them in script but some omniscient  'talent' that you either have or not have.  People marvel at the words, casting judgment on whether the writer is properly using his/her talent to form the words, but how often do they truly read and understand where those words came from.  Oh, there are literature classes where some professors profess to know and expound such knowledge on their students, but they are fools caught up in the structures of the words and phrases, completely ignoring the atmosphere around the words.  What words a writer puts on paper are crafted out of their own souls.  Everything that has happened to that author, from the gloomy sunrises to the spirited sunsets, has affected how he or she sees the world, tainting the written words in directions which even the author cannot understand.  Can someone be taught to understand more truly the words of a writer?  No, I am afraid not, at least not without some form of telepathy but with the chaos of our  thoughts one wonders if this is possible, either.  No, the only way to understand the words is to read the works of the author, study all you can about this person, and then come back to these works and see if you can't gleam some meaning in those words.  For those that doubt my words, I have an example to bear witness.  One author I used to read went by the pseudonym of James Tiptree, Jr., her real name being Alice Sheldon.  Several years ago she committed suicide, first killing her husband who had Alzheimer's and then herself.  When I heard this news, her last stories and novels of her's made sense

to me.  In each of the stories the main character, always a woman, was forced, by choice, to die at the end of the story for the betterment of others around this character.  Wasn't the author trying to justify their own death, if only to herself, by writing these stories.  Think about it next time you read a story and try to understand why the author wrote it, maybe you will enjoy the story more.

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