Sir, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, August 23rd) excels again in the wind-up department ("There is no greater writer in English today"). One can only, and kindly, assume that his Potter encomium was savagely parodic in its patronising let-the-meat-cake view of young, and old, Irish readers, rather than the August wanderings of your distracted diarist's mind.
The pedestrian sentimentality and plot-driven populism he champions is aimed at non-brow Billy-Bunter fantasists or "Beano subscribers clutching comfort blankets", as one English commentator succinctly put it. Rowling's spells-and-potions dimensionality precisely appeals to a generation "besotted with computers and cartoon imagery". Tolkien, James Stephens, Flann O'Brien, where art thou in this hour? Star Wars, morality plays? You're putting me on, Kev; your Modest Proposal nearly had me there for a minute. - Yours, etc.,
Antony Farrell, The Lilliput Press, Arbour Hill, Dublin 7.