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Nonsense. The mood you discern in the messages objecting to Saul Bellow's installation as the "unchallenged" Great American Novelist, and "The Adventures of Augie March" as the Great American Novel, is not defensiveness, but exasperation. One might plausibly argue that any person who belongs to an email list devoted to a single author is verging on the "cultish," but I resist such categorization, at least in this instance. The only "cult" at issue here is the Amis/Hitchens cult of St. Saul The Pagemaker. My complaint with Amis' constant, hyperbolic promotion of Saul Bellow as the colossus of American letters, with only Henry James as a potential rival, has nothing at all to do with Bellow's virtues vis-a-vis VN. As I noted in one of my earlier postings, it is Amis who inevitably and gratuitously drags VN into this matter, for no purpose other than to establish his questionable bona fides as a connoisseur of American fiction. One is certainly free to believe that "Augie," "Henderson," "Herzog," "Humboldt's Gift," "Sammler's Planet,"and all the rest, are "wonderful, great novels"; one is equally free to believe that they are not. The point is, Amis' contention that they represent the supreme achievement in American fiction is laughable. When was the last time that you heard an American proclaim Saul Bellow the greatest writer this warrior nation has produced? It was some time ago, I suspect. One of the reasons I find the Bellow cheer squad so annoying is that I believe there is more at work here than simply Amis' longtime friendship with the man: I suspect there is a political agenda to be served by Amis' coronation of Bellow. Amis' sidekick, Hitch, made this pretty clear in his effusive review of "Ravelstein" in the LRB. These days, the University of Chicago is a congenial intellectual campsite around which these former firebrands can circle their wagons, and, aside from whatever artistic merit he may possess, Bellow's long association with that maroon institution is a significant virtue in the eyes of Amis, et al., as they nosily evolve into crotchety Thatcherites, if not full -blown Straussians. So, rather than merely being a good, or even a great, writer who bears the Swedish Academy's seal of approval, Amis now finds it wise and prudent to proclaim Bellow the "American Tolstoy," the very best of the very best. As I said, nonsense.