Raising ‘Kane’ Over the Orson Welles Film and Other Classics

Kenneth Turan writes in his article on “Citizen Kane” (April 28) that viewing the restored film in a theater may sound “about as appealing as curling up with such old high school assignments as ‘Silas Marner’ or ‘The Mill on the Floss’ “--thereby proving that he has probably never read either.

While yielding to no one in my admiration for the Welles film, I am pained by the note of patronizing condescension Turan displays toward the work of George Eliot. The American pose of anti-intellectualism, anti-literacy, anti-anything that isn’t of this very minute (our obsession with the present and our lack of interest in the past) would be funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.

Turan goes on to imply that Eliot’s novels may be great for “fusty academic reasons” while “Kane” is great because it is “breathtakingly accessible.” This is really rather pathetic.

“The Mill on the Floss” is as great a novel as “Kane” is a film--maybe greater--and it sure as hell ain’t for no “fusty academic reasons.” No one said the only time to read the stuff was in high school. Eliot is also “breathtakingly accessible,” but you do have to open the book. To a generation addicted to the VCR, maybe that’s “inaccessible.”

Can’t we properly praise Welles’ masterpiece without pointless sideswipes at other works?

NICHOLAS MEYER

Los Angeles