My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time. Leslie Fiedler More Quotes by Leslie Fiedler More Quotes From Leslie Fiedler Faulkner sat in our living room and read from Light in August. That was incredible. Leslie Fiedler augustlightrooms I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegans Wake. Leslie Fiedler patternsfunnythinking All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science. Leslie Fiedler criticismwayart I've been writing about James Fenimore Cooper. He was not a writer. Here was a man who was 30 years old and had never put anything more than his signature on paper. Leslie Fiedler writingmenyears Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present. Leslie Fiedler magiclinespast Anybody in the next centuries wanting to know what it was like to be a poet in the middle of the 20th century should read Kaddish. Leslie Fiedler nextpoetcentury Cooper wrote a novel which is absolutely indistinguishable from Austen, completely from a female point of view, completely English, no sense that he was an American. Leslie Fiedler point-of-viewfemaleviews Foucault was the one person I met in France that I could talk to. He was a mensch. You know whether you agree with him or not because you know what he is saying. Leslie Fiedler agreemetsfrance Gertrude Stein really thought of Hemingway as frail. He almost married Stein. Leslie Fiedler gertrudefrailmarried Critics? How do they happen? I know how it happened to me. I would send a poem or story to a magazine and they would say this doesn't suit our needs precisely but on the other hand you sound interesting. Would you be interested in doing a review? Leslie Fiedler soundhandsinteresting Faulkner turned out to be a great teacher. When a student asked a question ineptly, he answered the question with what the student had really wanted to know. Leslie Fiedler studentswantedteacher DeLillo never seems committed to me to what he is writing. Very nice surfaces, but he's got nothing underneath. Leslie Fiedler surfacenicewriting I've had a tough time with Pynchon. I liked him very much when I first read him. I liked him less with each book. He got denser and more complex in a way that didn't really pay off. Leslie Fiedler tough-timespaybook Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend. Leslie Fiedler my-friendsadvice I gave up writing blurbs because you make one friend and 200 enemies. Leslie Fiedler gave-upwritingenemy If there's one thing I can't stand, it's somebody doing something because I pushed them in that direction. Leslie Fiedler one-thingi-canifs I think Henry Miller has had huge influence not because he wrote about sex, but because the memoir or the nonfiction novel has become such a monumental force in American publishing, if not in literature. Leslie Fiedler literaturesexthinking I liked Camille Paglia. I liked her even better when I heard her talk. Leslie Fiedler camilleheard The text is merely one of the contexts of a piece of literature, its lexical or verbal one, no more or less important than the sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological or generic. Leslie Fiedler historicalimportantcriticism Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism. Leslie Fiedler culture-religiondepressingcriticism
