Jaded palates
Sir: Frank Dunne is in such a rush to put me right on modernism (Letters, 29 Octo- ber) that he cannot stay to read even what Auberon Waugh says I said about it. Waugh says I said, and I said, and I say, not of course that the modernist movement 'would never have succeeded' without bodies like the Arts Council, but that the movement 'would be over but for the life-support machine provided by the Arts Council and other malign institutions'. In this country, that is, as was understood: Americans, Irish, French etc modernists are no doubt still doing well enough unassisted.
As to modernism's success in past years, it must have been helped by those like Dunne whose palates are so jaded that they find only a 'tepid, weak-tea tradition' in the work of that classic English poet, Edward Thomas. But then Thomas has never achieved 'worldwide acclamation', as far as I know.
Kingsley Amis
194 Regents Park Road, London NI
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