Special relationships
Sir: Though Christopher Booker came perilously close to playing footsie with the intentional fallacy (21 March), his statement that 'what the author is looking for is the reviewer who has really come to terms with his book' reminded me inescapably of another, similar one. In a 1969 New York Times interview (on the publication of Portnoy's Complaint), Philip Roth described the ideal reader as one whose 'sensibilities have been totally given over to the writer in exchange for his seriousness.'
The acceptability of either, both, or neither of these definitions pales beside the attempt to conceive of authors saying — as Mr Booker implied they should—something, along these lines: 'This reviewer rail.), understood what I was trying to do, thus?' doesn't matter that he believes I failed.
Susan H. Llewellyn
24 Burleigh Court, Burlington Road, Dublin, Eire
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