“[Fiction] doesn’t have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure that’s taken in reading something that’s durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself. Something that throws off these sparks—a persistent and steady glow, however dim.”
—excerpt from Raymond Carver’s 1983 interview with The Paris Review.
Yes, there is pleasure in reading fiction. And it IS a fierce one. Always enjoy Carver’s stories.
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
~ Jorge Luis Borges