I don’t find much to argue with in Marcus’ article, but I should confess that I’m not a big reader of contemporary fiction. I follow Ultimate Fighting on Spike TV much more closely. That is not to say that the great fiction, ancient or contemporary, I’ve been able to find is less significant than Ultimate Fighting. To the contrary, great fiction has been much more important to me. When I read a text again and again, (I’ve read Toni Morrison’s Jazz at least ten times, Oedipus more than that, and Celan’s Wirk Nicht Voraus sometimes daily for months on end), it’s because it allows me to feel connected to what most concerns me. And although what concerns me is elusive, it seems in some sense constant. Any number of things might make me feel connected, but when language is made into such an event, it – for me – becomes the most compelling thing in the world.

When I say I feel connected, I do not mean to imply that I come into a full understanding, or that I am able to resolve what it is that concerns me or even to know why it concerns me. A work of art – for me – evokes what most concerns me, and then disallows its resolution.

When what concerns you is resolved, you yourself are quietly and pleasantly obliterated.

Most reading nowadays – Tom Clancy, Sandra Brown – seeks that sort of obliteration, or worse.

Of course, there’s going to be pressure on literary fiction to move in this direction and an objection to this pressure from those who understand the value of what stands to be lost. What is disturbing – and here I completely agree with Marcus – is to encounter that pressure within the literary fiction world.

- Joe Wenderoth