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SCAT piety gama gure ce A nice, very nice, look at literary London and New Vouk Setting out to compare the mariners and idiom of the literary life in London and New York, let me first admit to my vantage point. Though I've lived in Lon- don for almost 15 years, making occa- sional forays into New York, I remain a Canadian, that is to say, nice, very nice, but just possibly subject to our northern paranoia, a tendency to regard non- Canadian life through a wrong-ended telescope, as witness what is still my most cherished Toronto newspaper headline: 1960 waS A GOOD YEAR FOR PLAY- WRIGHTS FROM OUTSIDE CANADA. On a recent trip home, I discovered that many a disgruntled Canadian lit- terateur still regarded London and New York as cities characterized by virulent anti-Canadjanism, which is to say, we are not celebrated in these capitals because one is a anobby homosexual conspiracy and the other an iniquitous Jewish closed- shop. Concretely, this means a surly Presbyterian Toronto novelist saying to me, “My stuff ian’: published in New York not because Pm ‘ousy, but because it's set here, If 1 were willing to re-set my novels in New York and give all my characters Jewish names, they'd be fall- ing ail over theruselves praising me.” I represent, as it were, the least mili- tant North American minority group, The re) + oan fod 7 me Pou. two capitals is economic. Though the ‘ present generation of British writers is largely drawn from the middie and work- ‘ing classes, there is still a lingering as- sumption that writers are gentlemen. Especially socialist writers. And so I'm Asonred that when Kinosler Martin was etill the editor of the New Statesman he stopped at the desk of a relatively new sub-editor to ask, “How are you doing?” To which the young editor is said to have ‘replied, with ill-concealed discontent, that he found it difficult to support a family of four on £20 a week. “Good Lord, ” ia tar ar WES SRaSSp Tey STALE EES Te for review copies; moreover he forks it out in tax-free cash. insult. Os occasional tripe to New York, I often feel myself an innocent traversing a battlefeld. No editor you lunch with =‘téday. has anything but scorm for the anc -you ate with yesterday, and the same seems true of one writer talking about another. Invective is vigorous, deeply personal and rich in expletives, running from the inside story of how the other man’s novel waa put together by editors to colorful anecdotes illustrating the an acknowledged expert, has pointed ou! A boy's got to push his book in Lon don too, but not by championing its virtues. On the contrary. He's expected to belittle it. And ao, you don't let out that you have written a novel that will make for a revolution in the conscious. ness of your generation: instead you allow that last month being = bore, you ateyed hewn and ee a ae | little book, which everyone's going to hate. Rather than badger critics and lit editors of your acquaintence, demanding attention in the name of friendship or past favors, you avoid them il nre- publication months, for to do im would be frightfully pushy. For their pert, editors and critice who have been long-standing friends make a point of handing out your book for review to de- clared enemies, if only to demonstrate that they, too, are above corruption. Before my last novel appeared in Lon- don, in 1963, an old friend, who had enjoyed reading the manuscript enor- — mously, admitted that he hed been sent the book for review. “I'm sure you under- stand,” he said, “that I will have to be rather hard on it Lots of people know we're friends.” This is not to say that some British authors ara not nrans + +L-!