More from the Sydney twanger

Returning on the train yesterday, I sat next to a chatty elderly lady. The journey had been uncomfortable for everyone on board, so we exchanged stories. She said she is an "art guide" in various locations in Sussex. Her favourite was Charleston, the country seat of the Bloomsbury set. It's also where they have a literary festival which, over the years, has enabled her to meet a few famous writers. She had liked Andrew Marr, she said, and Ian McEwan, all of whose books she has since bought and read. I nodded and smiled unconvincingly. But she didn't like that Clive James. This time my smile was more convincing! He was interested only in selling his awful book, she said. It reminded me of the interest stirred the day before when I read the Village Voice's books of the year feature in which Allen Barra recommends the book my neighbour scorned. He tells us that in it "Walter Benjamin, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Leon Trotsky take hits from which their reputations will never recover." What on earth, I wondered, had Benjamin done, said or written that could ruin his reputation as one of the greatest critics of the 20th Century? Garth Risk Hallberg of The Millions Blog helps to explain in part five of his long review. Of course, it's political. "How terrifying it is to see a fine mind in the grip of ideological fervor" Hallberg remarks, "I mean James', of course."

Apart from being a thinker whose sensibility - which can in no way be construed as ideological - has changed my life, Benjamin should be enrolled among James' angels. He was a victim of totalitarianism, killing himself in the Pyrenees when it seemed he wouldn't be able to escape the Reich. But because Benjamin practiced a syncretic version of Marxism, and would become popular, posthumously, with leftist academics, James can't let him die with dignity.

I am tempted to respond further but Praxis blog is more comprehensive than ever I could hope to be. It also reveals James' thoughts on Paul Celan's poetry: apparently he says it is "marred by its difficulty – a difficulty produced by Celan's need to find a refuge from harsh reality." Can there be a more insensitive reading? But James doesn't stop there: "Number me among the almonds Celan says. James responds: At the time I noted this instruction down, I couldn’t resist the unwritten addition: And call me a nut."

I shall have to resist writing anymore as I have two new year resolutions ready: one is to write fewer fire-fighting or abusive blogs and the other is to read as many of the four volumes of Benjamin's Selected Writings as possible. The latter should encourage the former.

PS: As I chatted about Charleston on the train, the cultural equilibrium was maintained when Geoffrey of Rainbow walked up the aisle. I'm not sure Clive would approve: George is obviously a pinko.