I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegans Wake.
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.
When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.
The novel is always pop art, and the novel is always dying. That's the only way it stays alive. It does really die. I've been thinking about that a lot.
Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate.