With the success of the animated movies Inside Out and its sequel, I have been thinking about the relationship between books and specific emotions. There are disagreements about how many emotions we have, but there are times that you read a book and you use one emotional label for describing it. Like saying that a book was so depressing, hopeful, exciting, funny, etc. Of course, they could also evoke other emotions, but that one label keeps coming up over and over again when you read that book.
For instance, I read, again, the book All Quiet on the Western Front. And although there were sections where I felt anger and frustration and even a few where I had a good laugh, by the end of the book I was left with this terrible feeling of sadness like I'd not experienced before. Like how pointless war is and how much damage is does to human body and psyche. So when someone says a sad novel, I think of Remarque's masterpiece.
Have you had experiences where you associate a book with one particular emotion?
by exfilmcritic