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seoereeun invrily peoup, Lhe white, heterdsexual ghetto of the north. We are, looked at closely, all that’s left of what was once the American dream. “It is possible, in English Canada,” Ed- mund Wilson has written, “to have rea- sonable conversations in which people pretty well speak their minds —~ they tisten, I noted, to one another instead of ‘shooting off their feces’ in competition, as we are likely to do...” In the past we have also brought bracingly uncompli- cated literary standards to bear on new and vulnerable works. For example, when my first eS Pp in 1954, I was not instantly savaged by what Truman Capote on a recent sales promotion trip to London, called the Jewish Maha, Neither was I ridiculed, London-style, by an unspeakably witty homosexual critic. Instead my no-non- sense, aw-shucks Toronto publisher grinned and asked, “Is it a thick book? Canadians like thick books.” Such, then, is my cultural heritage. Drawing on this uncontaminated stream of experience, 1 offeg_judgments on the differences between literary London and New York. Money. The definitive difference between the Paget " indeed, but there are perks . . of four on £20 a week. “Good Lord,” the radical Mr. Martin replied, “haven't you got a private income?” For the most part, literary chaps are paid in gentlemanly guineas, rather than plebian pounds, actually a difference of a shilling, and, unlike New York, it is considered coarse to inquire about the size of payment before accepting a com- mission. To ask for more moncy, it goes without saying, is unforgivably ill bred. When Norman Podhorets’ Making tt is published in London it will cause a different sort of literary unrest. What vill astonish penurious, indigenous cri- tics is not the revelations about “family” in-fighting, but the hard fact that in America it is possible for a reviewer to be paid $750 for a monthly book cofumn, as Podhorete was by Show. For in Lon- don, book review payment is infinitesimal that is to say, free books, maybe eight when you are only obliged to write about two. Or, most enviably, expensive art books. And come Saturday, reviewers from Hampstead to the veldts of deepest Sur- ‘rey, thirsting for Saturday night gin or baby-sitter money, eagerly await the com- ing of the Man. The Man, a Fleet Street bookseller, pays all the chaps half-price to colorful anecdotes illustrating. the other man’s pathetic lack of sexual prow: esa, In London, insult is at once less prolix, more contemptuous. Of a rival one thor- oughly loathes, you never sey more than {delivered with a patronizing smile, this) “What a nice little man.” Little man being the ultimate insult. Then, when asked what you think of another man’s recently published novel, you don’t re- spond ” with a detailed denunciation, which would be gauche. Instead, you smile and say, “He tries so hard, doesn’t he?” My absolutely favorite London insult goes back 10 years to the critic, a notori- ous drinker and free-loader, who, having arrived (typically) uninvited at a pub- lisher's party for T. S. Eliot, and then this Eenily pointed ut ta him by the frm ai 2 out, bellowing, “ “I leave the rest of you to your common American friends.” Self-promotion. With a book about to appear, a New York writer seems to embark with im- punity on a publicity-secking campaign, ing critics ing critics and having editors to , dinner, “A boy's got to push his book,” a» Truman Capote, did come?” sen oanwe authors are not prone to their own c- voluted brand of self-promotion. It is, instance, the done thing in some circ to send « signed copy of a forthcomi novel along eter literary, editors with note that says, “I’m sure you'll hate th: dreadfully pretentiona little book wild! bot just in case you have space | waste, ... Taking this a step further, writers wil phone gossip columnists a week befor publication and declare, “It’s simply un- true to say I smoke pot. I want to se on record, denying it.” Penury and inventive self, prof. ry were once wonderfully entwined when an acquaintance phoned to ask if I could come to 6 party after the opening of his play at a theater club. Before I could say yes, be rattled off a list of glittering trendies who had already agreed to at- tend. “Well, sure,” I said. “Now, um, the thing is I'm not having a party, actually. Can’t afford it. Bot I’m collecting a list of names for one of the columnists, and as you've already said that yon would come, } know this is s bore, but do you mind if I say thet you —~MORDECAI RICHLER BOOK WORLD Mey Sm