Unappetising
Sir: Mr Bruce Anderson is of course welcome to review a book in terms of per- sonal animus and indeed to tangle with me, if he thinks that altogether wise (18 June). But he must do his homework on the elementary English classics before quoting them. As it is, an imperfect knowledge of H. G. Wells flows elegantly into an im- perfect recollection of Milton.
The red-eyed masters of the Earth in The Time Machine were called 'Morlocks'. Milton's embodiment of evil was Moloch. Mr Anderson's 'Molocks' are, as Sir Winston Churchill put it of the late Alfred Bossom, 'not quite the one and not quite the other'.
As for the Senate, in the title of my book, it alludes, as every moderately well-read person knows, not to Gulliver but to Dr Johnson. For the term 'The Senate of Lilliput' was used by him in his Gallery days when reporting debates for (alas) The Gentleman's Magazine.
Incidentally, the Morlocks roasted the Eloi and ate them. For my part I am con- tent (in Judge Jeffreys's words) to give your stumbling reviewer 'a lick with the rough edge of my tongue'. He is not very appetis- ing.
Edward Pearce Daily Telegraph, Fleet Street, London EC4
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