Introduction: Allegories of Bleeding

Whenever I permit myself to meet new people, the question inevitably posed to the “literature professor” is one that haunts me in my darkest hours: “So what do you read for fun?” Much less innocent than it sounds, the query is raised in defense of the textual pleasure principle, thinking it an aberration that reading, the lovely pastime, should be degraded to the pallid labor that secures someone’s livelihood rather than filling the lazy hours of Sunday afternoons. Having been confronted with the dreaded probe countless times, I must admit that I still don’t quite know what it means, but in my mind the fabled act of reading for fun has something to do with reading so it doesn’t hurt. Yet even if such a thing were possible, I suppose I fail to grasp its allure. For would we read at all if it didn’t threaten to intimidate, invade, and injure?