Readers of Leslie Fiedler's writings in the little magazines during the past half decade or so may well have wondered whether this brilliant young writer would make his book-length debut in fiction, poetry or the essay, for his lively talent encompasses all these genres. As it happens, this first book ["An End to Innocence"] is a collection of essays, yet its abundant variety draws upon a sensibility at home in all the literary forms. Here are political analyses, travel reportage, literary criticism—and yet the unity of a single theme and a single personal tone are sustained throughout.
Fiedler is a rare kind of literary critic these days: he reads books as if they were an experience in life, and he examines the documents of life (like the reports of the Hiss-Chambers trial) with the minute scrutiny that critics usually bestow only on the sacred literary canon. And because life and literature are not separated in his criticism, indeed flow reciprocally into each other, these essays, while still preserving their critical sharpness, often become as dramatic as fiction.
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