第一天，我问我的学生他们认为小说应该做什么，为什么要完全读小说。这是一种奇怪的开始方式，但我确实成功引起了他们的注意。我解释说，在整个学期的过程中，我们将阅读并讨论许多不同的作者，但是这些作者的共同点是他们的颠覆性。
(That first day I asked my students what they thought fiction should accomplish, why one should bother to read fiction at all. It was an odd way to start, but I did succeed in getting their attention. I explained that we would in the course of the semester read and discuss many different authors, but that one thing these authors all had in common was their subversiveness.)