Peter Lamarque

Christopher Hitchens in a sour, mean-spirited review (LRB, 25 July) rails against Janet Morgan’s biography of Edwina Mountbatten for being cliché-ridden from start to finish. It turns out his gripe, though, is more against the book’s subject-matter than its style. What he can’t stand are all those ‘powerful’ well-connected types, with ‘wealthy debs’ in tow, frolicking from party to party,...

SIR: Geoffrey Strickland (Letters, 20 February) asserts that ‘there are no philosophical problems peculiar to what we call literature as distinct from other forms of written and spoken communication. Philosophically speaking, literature doesn’t exist.’ These, I take it, are philosophical theses – and about literature. The two claims are certainly not plain facts; they belong at the end, not...

SIR: In a fine piece of cut-and-thrust polemic, Professor Ricks has deftly exposed some of the humbug and extravagance of certain recent literary theorising (LRB, 16 April). It is unfortunate, though, that in the process he is led to disparage all theory about literature, and philosophy to boot.Of course ‘theory’ is a bogy word and an easy target, particularly when contrasted with ‘practice’;...