is that the noblest objective of a work of fiction?

Fiction having extensive detail about the gymnastics of copulation or sexual congress - or even the alleged responses to it - does not make interesting reading to me. It's like trying to describe the noise of a subway train. There are people who can do it. Young writers go in for that type of description. But when they're finished, all they've done is described the noise of a subway train coming into a station or pulling out of a station. Is that the noblest objective of a work of fiction? To convince the reader that what you're writing about is really happening? I don't think so.

- Joseph Heller, in 1992, in conversation with Kurt Vonnegut and Carole Mallory for Playboy. You can read the whole thing, as a Google Document, here.