Fame is not always proportional to merit: if it were, Simon Leys (who lived the last forty years of his life in Australia, and died last year) would have been one of the most famous writers in the world. After his recent death I asked a few Belgians of my acquaintance, all well-educated, what they knew of him, their great fellow countryman: and in none of them did his name ring more than a faint bell occasioned by having seen, but not actually read, an obituary notice in one Belgian newspaper or another.  I do not think that Leys would…