HEN AND PEN SIR,—Misled originally by his use of the
word 're- stricting' and still in some doubt about it, I now begin to'see what besides the PEN Mr. Kingsley Amis , was trying to get at. If he is implying that any but a quite tiny, negligible number of writers spend, or have leisure, opportunity or temptation to spend, 'too much time with other writers,' then I think your readers should be told they will he mistaken in sup- posing that he knows what he is talking about. Authors are naturally gregarious. Even that good old 'hard core' (fruit-trade or coal-trade term?) can- not be composed entirely of curmudgeonly hermits. This is not to deny that, as they always have, done, idle natterers abound, but they are, as they always have been, expendable. Anxiety on their behalf is misplaced.
As for the PEN: with branches in at least 40 differ- ent countries, with Andial Chamson as its president, and with its 29th annual congress taking place this year in Japan, it is accurately referred to as an Inter- national Association of Writers. The 'PEN Club' is a misnomer, at any rate in this country. Its English headquarters (presided over by C. V. Wedgwood) can offer no club amenities—not even a bar : which is regrettable, because I should have liked to be able to ask Mr. Amis, when he next comes to town, to be good enough to join me in a drink there and tell me more about what he believes to be going on in central London, Perhaps. Sir, you could persuade him to write a piece on the subject. He has excited the curio- sity of so many of us.—Yours faithfully,
18 East Heath Road, Hampstead, NW3 DANIEL GEORGE
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