Last month on litblog Nota Bene Books, blogger Nigel Beale interviewed Canadian critic, editor, and writer John Metcalf about book reviewing and, specifically, the necessity for negative reviews. In the lengthy audio interview, Metcalf explained that he sees bad writing as a personal attack and bashed many well-regarded Canadian authors, including M.G. Vassanji, Robertson Davies, and Ann-Marie MacDonald. After remarking that he needed two bottles of scotch to get through MacDonald’s best-selling novel Fall On Your Knees, his criticism of Vassanji became the main focus of the interview:

You read one paragraph of Vassanji and you know that you are not dealing with a person that can handle the English language. I mean, there’s no debate, there’s no question, it’s not my opinion. It’s the opinion of anybody that is literate.

Now, Beale has interviewed Vassanji about his recent Penguin biography of Mordecai Richler, but not without asking for a response to Metcalf’s remarks. Although the author stated that the opinion of one critic was inconsequential, he was quick to fire back insults at his attacker:

He’s an old guy, he doesn’t know how to age gracefully. I mean, he’s the nationalist. He’s the one … measuring who’s Canadian, who’s not…. Nobody knows John Metcalf except a few people.