Andrew H. Miller:

Reading stories is one way we explore attitudes of attachment to ourselves. . . . One can be amused with oneself, or earnest, reckless, experimental, smug, interested, judgmental, intermittently bored . . . . Fiction provides a wild taxonomy of such attitudes. More than that, it studies what it is to be committed to yourself at all. It makes of our commitment to continue reading an allegory for our commitment to continue being ourselves.