It is no doubt true that the 1980’s will bena decade of political uncertaintyncharacterized by rapid shifts in power,nsimilar to the decade following the endnof World War II. The direction finallyntaken will be determined by organizationalnskill on the political level and bynOn Thrills & CorrectitudenLeslie Fiedler: What Was Literature?:nClass Culture and Mass Society; Simonn& Schuster; New York.nPaulFussell: The Boy Scout Handbooknand Other Observations; OxfordnUniversity Press; New York.nby Gary S. Vasilashnif there’s a K-Mart in Buffalo, NewnYork, then customers there have undoubtedlynspotted a burly man in his latenfifties in the so-called “Book-Korner”nwhose eyes glow with the Iviminosity ofntwo cigar butts as he gazes upon the racksnof Janet Dailey, John Jakes, RosemarynRogers, Isaac Asimov, and the rest. He isnno ordinary bargain hunter, though Insuspect that even a man who is describednas having taught “in many of the greatnuniversities of the Western World” onnthe dust jackets of his collected essaysn(there are two volumes) needs to get angood deal on housewares and motor oil,nto say nothing of saving 10% on booknprices. He is Samuel Clemens Professornof English at the State University of NewnYork at Buffalo, Leslie Fiedler. He wasnonce widely known as Leslie A. Fiedler;nhe probably didn’t hit K-Mart then. Henclaims in What Was Literature?: ClassnCulture and Mass Society that his use ofnthe middle initial was rather pretentious:nduring the L.A.F. period he most likelynconfined his book-browsing to sites fullynstocked with Pelicans and Penguins. Butnnow he is a changed man, though no lessnMr. Vasilash is associate editor of thenChronicles.n8nChronicles of Cultarencogency of argumentation on the intellectualnand cultural level. It must waitnupon the restoration of consensus evennon such matters as national defense. Innthe meantime, if government is unablento extend its authority in the domesticnsphere, that will be all to the good. Dncantankerous and ornery. And whjlenK-Mart doesn’t make it into his latest exhortation,nit’s worth noting that Kojack,nBaretta, and Starsky and Hutch do.nJames, Milton, and even contemporariesnlike John Barth are there too, but ifnFiedler is correct, then their fates are lessnagreeable than those of the canceledntelevision shows.nThe title of Fiedler’s book What WasnLiterature? connotes, because of thentense, that it is another trart written toninter the novel. It isn’t. The book—atnleast in light of his new purity—shouldncarry a more accurate tide, such as WhatnWas Literature Before L Decided WhatnCounts? or, more simply. There’s anHarlequin in Your Future.n”It is perhaps to be expected that thenNegro and the homosexual shouldnbecome stock literary themes in a periodnwhen the exploration of responsibilitynand failure has become again a primarynconcern of our literature.” So opensn”Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, HucknHoney,” an essay that first appeared innPartisan Review, June 1948: Fiedlernestablished himself on the scene, kicking.nHe notes in What Was Literature?nthat one result of World War II was anlarge cadre of young upstarts, many ofnwhom had government-subsidizednPh.D.’s, many ofwhich were awarded bynland-grant and city colleges. These barbariansn(in the root sense) were “Sonsnand daughters of working-class or pettybourgeoisnparents, not even predominantlynNorth European, much less echtnAnglo-Saxon, after a while overwhelminglynEast European Jewish.” People,nthat is, like Fiedler. They battered at thennndoors, climbed over the walls, and underminednthe “Citadel” being held bynold-line scholars: “elitists,” Fiedler callsnthem. The new breed was successful; itsnmembers established themselves in thenuniversities. But they became what theynopposed: Milton and Shelley were out;nPound and Eliot were just as tenaciouslyntouted. And so, basically, things have remainedn(with the exception of the emergencenof stmcturalists, deconstructionists,netc.). Still, Fiedler remains, kicking,nundoubtedly to be one day led away innthat state by white-jacketed professionals.nFiedler notes with certain pride thatnhe has “graduated, in the view of [his]ncritics, from the status of enfant terriblento that of’ dirty old man’ without passingnthrough a decent maturity.” He is,nrather, an embittered Peter Pan who hasndelusions of being the Napoleon ofnliterature.nJL he problem that exists is definingnthe “our literature” that Fiedler speaks ofnin the sentence quoted above fromn”Come Back to the Raft.” He points out,nfor example, that Mark Twain, who hasnserved as his meal ticket since his arrivaln(mark the chair he holds at SUNY-nBtiffalo), was once considered too low fornserious consideration by scholars andncritics. He resents the fact that the formernmembers of the revolutionary cadre havensetded into their tenured positions, leavingnhim to be an avant-garde of one. Onenway that Fiedler has continued his agitationnis through self-exposure, which is asnshocking to his now-staid peers as a mannin a trench coat, shoes, and nothing elsenis to an unwitting passerby in a park.nAlthough most would describe Fiedler asna teacher and a critic, that isn’t whatnFiedler ’82 considers himself. He says,n”It has taken me decades … to realizenthat like other entertainers I have beennpaid to allay boredom—in my case bynmaking our country and our culturenseem more interesting and amusing thannmost academic accounts would lead us tonbelieve.” That Fiedler has talked aboutnJames Fenimore Cooper on The MervnGriffin Show should come as no shock ton