A MAGIC LANTERN

Robert Smith’s column on Arcana’s proprietor, Lee Kaplan (Book Review, Oct. 31), covered more territory than four paragraphs of language would seem to make possible.

I sometimes think there are owners of secondhand bookstores who belong as much to the history of literature as the literature they sell. Because the great books are out of print they are crucially positioned to do for the public what a Barnes & Noble or Crown is not interested in doing. A Lee Kaplan rescues from oblivion “a copy of Danny Lyon’s seminal paperback of bikers’ photos,” and provides a visitor to his bookstore with a magic lantern into another world.

Smith’s use of language reveals why he enjoys browsing in secondhand bookstores. His “thoughtfully-out-of-step with the times” and “this is bookstore shopping at the most sublime” says as much about Smith as a nonconformist as it does about Kaplan. He likes secondhand bookstores, because he has obviously experienced the insights and perceptions that strike home when you unexpectedly come upon an author whose use of language unlocks a door leading to something else.

In four engrossing paragraphs Smith entered Kaplan’s world and drew the portrait of a man who should be admired for devoutly dedicating himself to the positive effects of his work on people. Kaplan tests the common assumptions and compulsions of those in my business (asset management), most of whom, in a lifetime, fail to experience the exultation of a Kaplan when he opens a book that causes him to look at and into himself and discovers he wants it for his bookstore.

RICHARD NEY, PASADENA

GIVING VOICE TO THE VICTIMS OF INCEST

Robert Dawidoff’s review of “Come Here: A Man Overcomes the Tragic Aftermath of Childhood Sexual Abuse” (Book Review, Oct. 24) was written with uncommon empathy, insight and courage. When Dawidoff says, “Most of us survivors . . . “ I know that he knows whereof he speaks.

What strikes me about the review and, of course, the book itself, is the pervasiveness and dynamics of incestuous child abuse. Berendzen’s over-achievement academically, belied the horror of his mother’s molestation of him; yet, he (and by implication many others in his predicament) accepted his family as normal, burying his repressed rage in secrecy.

In confronting what had been done to him, Berendzen exorcised the ghosts haunting him since childhood, taking the indispensable first step toward his own healing. One cannot help wondering how many others, silent as stones, will cry out one day our own horrors: then, and only then, will we know ourselves and be able to live authentic lives. What is true of us as individuals, I suspect, is largely true of us en masse. To be authentic and possibly redemptive, the collective memory we call history must somehow reflect our innermost pains and accompanying denials. Thank you, Richard Berendzen, thank you Robert Dawidoff--for showing us how to probe our past so that we can avoid being unconsciously enslaved by it.

THOMAS J. OSBORNE, LAGUNA BEACH

“Undoing the Damage of Incest,” Robert Dawidoff’s review of “Come Here” by Richard Berendzen, is a commendable piece of literature in itself. Dawidoff’s compassion and his remarkable grasp of the dynamics of childhood victimization provide a concise and compelling guide for the understanding of abuse.

Too often the wise reflections of entrenched adults are blind to the once-familiar landscape of the child’s world. We conveniently overlook our own capacity for helplessness and heap disdain on those who confess to being overpowered by continuing abuse. The bulwark of societal “adultism” gives scant credence to problems of child victims while trumpeting outrage at the risk of being falsely accused. It is suddenly trendy to belittle and reject autobiographical accounts of abuse as weak excuses for a life gone sour. A chic literati denounces all late-remembered abuse as false, inspired by the growth industries of survivor self-help books and specialist therapists. The very book, “The Courage to Heal,” commended in the “Come Here” review, is damned in false memory quarters as the pagan gospel that has goaded thousands of adult children to punish their parents for imagined abuse.

So it is a credit to The Times to select for “Come Here” a reviewer who could do justice to a book so vulnerable to prejudicial rejection. If we are to be emancipated from untold generations of hidden terror, we must welcome Richard Berendzen’s candid exposure of his own private hell. If we are to accept his unwelcome message for our eventual benefit, we must empower and reward such enlightened guides as Robert Dawidoff.

ROLAND SUMMIT, M.D., UCLA

FOR THE HARD-BOILED RECORD

In “Shooting Blanks” (Dec. 12), that mysterious name on the short list of giants of crime fiction was Dashiell Hammett.