BIOGRAPHIZED FICTION?

As far as I know, without reading it, Todd Gitlin’s “The Murder of Albert Einstein” (Oct. 18) might be an ingenious and instructive picture of the times of modern science, and great fun. At least it apparently does not pretend to be a serious premise, and thus introduces an entirely new genre.

Instead of fictionalized biography, we are now to have biographized fiction, in which any kind of story is wrapped in the ready-made aura of some great figure. Exactly what we need for the petri dish of the popular mind. National Enquirer will never again lack for material. May the gods help future historians.

As long as we are at it, why not really go for the gold? How about: “Did Christ Fake His Own Death?” Think of the possibilities! Here we have a popular young philosopher doing the Galilee circuit, who gets into trouble, but substitutes a third thief who happens to look like himself (Sorry, Fella!) in a local enforcement crackdown. After the event, he stashes the stiff of the third thief elsewhere, creating the empty tomb, and then reappears to demonstrate his own transcendence, and for the next two millennia the fundamental rabble goes wild!

Revisionism will never be the same.

LAWRENCE GURNEY

SANTA MONICA