A critical view
Allan Massie (Opinion, 16 February) writes that, having written a number of novels and dozens of critical articles, he is eminently qualified to act as a judge of what is good and bad literature.
George Orwell wrote, in Writers and Leviathan: "I often have the feeling that even at the best of times literary criticism is fraudulent, since in the absence of any accepted standards whatever – any external reference which can give meaning to the statement that such and such a book is "good" or "bad" – every literary judgement consists in trumping up a set of rules to justify an instinctive preference."
Says it all really; the truth is that everyone's a critic and concepts such as Dr Leavis' Great Tradition are egregrious nonsense.
DAVID MILLAR
Tytler Gardens
Edinburgh