Waugh bash
Sir: As an admirer of don Andrea Giovene's The Dilemma of Love which your reviewer, Auberon Waugh, discusses with some dis
taste in your issue of January 20, I would like to question one of his statements from a position of strength, as I am personally acquainted with the book's author. "What I suspect had happened," says Mr Waugh, "is that Sig Giovene's memories have adjusted themselves to the time-honoured fictional perspective. He honestly thinks that societies existed such as starry-eyed Englishmen describe. Quite a coup for English letters." But Sig Giovene does not speak or read English, and his description of his primitive Italian village is based on this own prewar observation. I have seldom come across a more insular insinuation that this of Mr Waugh's — that a Neapolitan writer has to rootle around among English letters for his view of a Calabrian village where he himself has lived for several years. Incidentally, don Andrea's next
volume is about his experience as an Italian cavalry officer in the last war — hardly patient of being culled from an English prototype. The misprint of " tan " for " fan " does not help, by the way, with the example of the author's prose cited by Mr Waugh. Ifarbara Lucas 57 Ladbroke Road, London W11
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