LETTER : Literary 'Sirs'

From Mr Michael Scott

Sir: Silence is probably a better response, and certainly as Shakespeare made clear, there should be a "pox on opinions". However, I cannot help but protest at the media's current eulogies on the recent death of Kingsley Amis.

I have no quarrel at all with the man, but to read him described as "one of the finest English writers of the 20th century" (report, 23 October) is extremely irritating. Since the novels of Conrad, Woolf, Lawrence, and Joyce in the early part of the century, there have not been any great novelists in English.

Of course there have been quite a few second-rate ones, and all eager to give us their opinions on the world about us, just as much as they have been equally eager to accept the public title of "Sir" - a title which for a writer usually signifies the end of any possible literary credibility.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Scott

Canterbury,

Kent

23 October