Waugh bashing
Sir: Auberon Waugh's book reviews are pretty puerile, and whilst they liven up that notoriously provincial tea-room that is, or passes for, English literary life, no one takes them seriously. They are what they set out to be: notes on a working journalist's slightly grubby cuff. The man hangs himself every week, and it is next week's letters that set him free. Allow me to start sawing, Auberon, there's a deadline to meet.
Leslie Thomas is, naturally, a wounded man. But he shouldn't have bothered. Neither should I, but it passes the time, and the Rolls is off the road.
My only thought is that whilst Leslie splashes about in his e50,000 advance (watch the tax, Leslie: claim for every safety-catch and bullseye, son) he shouldn't kid himself. The ' qualities' that an unsentimental paperback publisher has found in Onward Virgin Soldiers are, like its predecessor, commercial, not artistic. So, for Mr Thomas to place himself shoulder to shoulder with Doris Lessing is as ludicrous as to suggest that Harold Robbins is up there with Scott Fitzgerald. They used words to make a living: that's all they shared.
Mr Thomas wrote a dream of a book in This Time Next Week, and his Islands one wasn't bad; but, like Mr Braine, once you start cashing in on an earlier success, you ask for all you get. Namely, 00,000 smackeroos, and a readership of two million boy soldiers.
Christopher Leach Far Yew Tree House, Over Tabley, Knutsford, Cheshire
Previous page
