A LITTLE WILD FIRING

It was generous--give-away-the-store-like--of Book Review to let massah Bruce Wagner show off all his skeevy new words in his review of the Jerry Stahl book, “Permanent Midnight” (Book Review, April 23). And even nicer of the paper to let young Wagner zorro its pages with free samples (favella-morphs?) of his fuhcocktuh juvenile style.

But Brucie baby, where was the book review part? I mean, look Ace, write another one fast. Make it about the book this time--don’t be so self-conscious. Maybe it’ll happen. And if they say it’s better than this last one, tell ‘em the stalking horse story: “Sometimes there’s a little wild firing before you hit the bear.”

BILL MONTGOMERY, LONG BEACH

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I became so lost in the maze of irrelevant references, the drifting off into word-processor limbo, that I could not get beyond the first few paragraphs of Bruce Wagner’s muddy review of Jerry Stahl’s “Permanent Midnight” (April 23). It begins: “Jerry Stahl looms . . . floats . . . Bogsian-like (Seinfeldesque?), over the title of this coruscating . . . hellza (skin) poppin’. . . .” Well, you get the idea.

I want to be able to determine for myself from an analytical overview of the book’s content, the author’s style, etc., whether or not it’s something I’d be interested in reading. I do not want to be dazzled from the point by the reviewer’s let’s see how many references I can indulge to detract from the essence of the book itself.

I suggest Wagner get into the Times’ archives and read some of the late Robert Kirsch’s clean, crisp, informative and often clever--without being cutesy--reviews, as an example of intelligent critiquing.

Incidentally, just whose “thirty-something aspirations” was Wagner describing? Stahl’s, or his own?

NANCY MILLER SHERMAN, HERMOSA BEACH