What's the point?

When you start reading a novel, do you ask yourself this question? What's the point of this novel? And if you do, does it bother you, if there seemingly is no point?

When someone asks me about the point of a novel I'm reading, I get annoyed. This is not a question about plot or subject matter, or themes. It is a question about purpose. Does one need to easily articulate this point, or this illusive point can be something like a feeling? An impression? Something that words can't necessarily describe? Does there have to be a purpose, other than just being?

Today I stated reading The Understory by Pamela Erens. I read only the first two chapters, and I'm immersed in images; in the protagonist's perception of life. These chapters made me think about what it means to be mentally handicapped, and how we are all too close to... I don't know...is insanity too strong a word? Mental state is a fragile thing. Always a balance. And I'm intrigued to find more, to learn more about this character. I wish him well in this crazy world into which he is struggling to fit, like all of us struggle to fit, in different ways.

And then I get asked this question.
What's the point of the novel you are reading? And it is not that I can't explain (I just did in the paragraph above), but I feel helpless, frustrated and sad, that something beautiful has to be reduced to a "point", and that many value art exactly this way--by its purpose.

Why it is not enough that the novel makes me think, and feel, and wonder? That it allows me to walk down a China Town street and smell the air? If a novel is to "elevate" or "educate", does it have to be in a certain, easily digestible manner? If a novel is to make one a better person, does this mean the novel's protagonists have to be already those "better" people that we aspire to be?

Ah, I'm ranting. I resent the idea that everything has to have an easily digestible, or like some prefer an already digested, purpose.

Thoughts on this? Am I alone in my thinking? I can't be, right?