A MATTER OF ACCURACY

In Alex Raksin’s review of “Who Am I This Time?” (Book Review, March 20) not one sentence is entirely accurate.

In the interest of objectivity, let me quote Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, reviewing the book in the New York Times: “Something occurs in the early development of human beings that prompts them to adopt fictional images of themselves. These images can work for good or ill. As a matter of routine, Jay Martin writes, ‘normal personalities are defined by and normal identities realized through fictions, ranging from tales, fantasies, and wishes, to dreams of all sorts.’ But . . . ‘Modern culture has become increasingly differentiated from traditional societies by the enormous enlargement of fictions through the fiction-producing qualities of the media. Newspapers, popular magazines, movies, and, most of all, television have so flooded modern culture with fictions that many people have difficulty distinguishing between social relations that are real and those that are fantasized.’ ”

I do not “blame” television for anything. I am an analyst of culture and a psychoanalyst of persons, not a moralist. The whole point of my book is that fictions are an enduring part of human life.

JAY MARTIN

IRVINE