Anglomania

Michael!

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Do you ever sleep ? Or is it something they put in your "olde" muesli ? Anyway, in the Department of Clarification, let's deal with what I take to be your two basic points.

1. I'm not going to waste your precious time (and mine) going over the major/minor ground again. My position is that Ian Buruma and Julian Barnes are both important English writers, the former a journalist, the latter a novelist. In the scheme of things, exactly how important they are is, of course, beyond our competence. But their work--their new books, these two books under discussion--is always, I thought I was saying, of significance. If these are "minor works," I dread to think what kind of exchange we'd have about major ones!

2. Your "defense" of Buruma passed me by. I think I was dazzled by the bright beam of your prose.

Your application to the Groucho Club is not imperiled, though I think some of the intellectuals who gather at the bar will be rather intimidated by a writer who seems actually to have read the books he holds forth about!

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Michael Hirschorn can name every member of Arsenal Football Club's starting 11. Robert McCrum is literary editor of Britain's Observer and his most recent book is My Year Off: Recovering Life After a Stroke. This week they discuss Julian Barnes' England, England and Ian Buruma's Anglomania.

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