Just a smack at Amis
Sir: The complaint of the gravely wounded Kingsley Amis that he was 'cut into illitera- cy' because the Spectator had altered his copy so that it featured the phrase 'Harold Robbins, whose The Storyteller shows . . .' fails to fill me with pedantic fellow- feeling. 'Possessive followed by definite article is not English,' he pontificates. I wonder. It's surely arguable that a The is inextricably part of a title, and that the whole title constitutes a kind of single noun. If Mr Amis were to ask me, 'Have you read Iris Murdoch's Sea, the Sea?' I should reply, `No. But I have read her The Sea, the Sea.' I don't want my novel, The Lot, referred to as my Lot and put on the Religion shelves of the libraries. Still less, when my forthcoming musical biography, The Who, is published, do I want to read the words 'James Michie, whose Who . . etc.
James Michie
45 Okehampton Road, London NW10
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