Literary feng shui
From Mr Jack Robertson Sir: Bevis Hillier's review of the Clive James essays (Books. 4 August) articulates neatly the authorial shift underlying the 'social commentary' of recent decades. What ultimately defeats James's erudition, wit and technical brilliance is his faint but ineradicable air of professional detachment. As with the novels of his mate Martin Amis, the polemic of fellow expat Germaine Greer, and the criticism of the Burchills and Gills who are his journalistic progeny, James readers can never quite avoid feeling that they are simply being 'shaken down' by a very articulate intellectual mercenary.
In an age of infinite self-parody and endless irony. even the finest literary journalism now seems dilettantish. Dazzling wits and famous pens tinker about with the latest ishoos' like literary feng shui fiends, rearranging the furniture in line with the trends, and mostly, it would seem, to demonstrate their relentless cleverness. Hillier's deployment of Muggeridge and Larkin in oblique contrast was piercing. Ultimately, what made both men's writing not merely 'brilliant' but also often profound were the lives they lived beyond the page. Perhaps the Groucho should close its doors. forcing Pommy writers into the real world again.
Jack Robertson
New South Wales, Australia
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