While Reed's use of a more conventional narrative form in Reckless Eyeballing makes him less "experimental," his subject matter keeps him mired in controversy. One source comments that Reed "seemed to relish the outrage his book evoked as 'publicity' and as a way of carrying on the project that seems to consume him." So the lack of postmodern markers in Reed's Reckless Eyeballing does not mean that his viewpoints themselves lack any of the same punch he carried in his earlier works of fiction. Reed's aim is to enlighten and educate, and his fiction does both, to those who'll listen. For Ishmael Reed, indeed, "writing is fighting."