Do you think pleasure is the main purpose of literature, if it can be said to have a purpose? BORGES: Well, pleasure, I don’t know, but you should get a kick out of it, no? BURGIN: Yes. BORGES: Well, if you allow me to attempt slang, yes I think that should be so. You know I’m a professor of English and American literature and I tell my students that if you begin a book, if at the end of fifteen or twenty pages you feel that the book is a task for you, then lay that book and lay that author aside for a time because it won’t do you any good. For example, one of my favourite authors is De Quincey. Well, as he’s a rather slow-moving author, people somehow don’t like him. So I say, well, if you don’t like De Quincey then let him alone; my task is not to impose my likes or dislikes on you. What I really want is that you should fall in love with American or English literature, and if you find your way to a few authors or a few authors find their way to you, then that’s as it should be.
