Does Charlie Kaufman Deserve Such Accolades?

I’m a fan of the intriguing scripts of Charlie Kaufman, but I have to object to his full-blown egomania regarding Susan Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief” (“Why Charlie Kaufman Is Us,” by David Ulin, May 14). Poor Ms. Orlean, who seemed to have been pressured by the producers of the film to put up with the total transmogrification of her book in order to placate Kaufman and director Spike Jonze following the success of “Being John Malkovich.” Putting aside the quality of the film “Adaptation,” the idea of Kaufman shredding a fellow writer’s work because he was unable to adapt it without turning it into a story about himself reeks of shameless self-absorption.

Alex Van Dyne

North Hollywood

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Some advice for David Ulin: When writing about screenwriters who work in the 100-page “treatment” genre, don’t mention them in the same sentence with Pulitzer Prize winners (Michael Chabon) or one of the greatest novelists of the last century (F. Scott Fitzgerald). You lose credibility instantly. The article failed to convince me that Charlie Kaufman is even the best screenwriter in Hollywood.

Shawn Delaney

Escondido

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I finally get it! I now comprehend movies such as “Adaptation,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Being John Malkovich.” Solipsisms aside, it seems Kaufman’s existential musings are the archetypal ideas of an obsessional blurring of reality and invention.

Kaufman asks: Who are we? Why are we here? How did we get here? What is the meaning of life? I ask: Are these not arbitrary constructs? Would not Sigmund Freud’s theorem of id, ego and super-ego better explain Catherine Keener’s presence in Donald’s, I mean, Charlie’s house?

Dan Anzel

Los Angeles