‘SUN’ AND SEE

In the process of deriding, among other things, the prose style of Paul Rosenblatt’s “The Sun in Capricorn” (Book Review, Jan. 21), Carolyn See, herself, writes the following gems:

“On the other hand, the Watermark Press operates out of Wichita, Kan., and not to denigrate Wichita in any way, but still, it’s not the publishing capital of the United States.” And: “The author readily acknowledges that the idea for this revolutionary came initially from a magazine piece written in 1970 by Sanche de Gramont, and, beyond that, the revolutionary is ‘in name and being, work of the imagination.’ ”

It seems probable that the book in question deserves the dissection it has received at the hand of Miss See, but surely a “dull scalpel” is a virtual oxymoron, even if a “clumsy surgeon,” unfortunately, is not.

FRED SCIFERS, DOWNEY