Sir: The goat and witches on the Spectator cover (August
19) held promise of much worthier fare than was served up for us in Mr Blish's quadruple book review. I gather that Mr Blish's built-in predisposition to discount all that I would prefer to call the abnormal in life would have made him a formidable critic a couple of thousand years ago when Jesus is reported to have bent a natural law or two?
Seriously, though: what exactly is Mr Blish getting at? Is he suggesting that the 'supernatural' is on its way out and/or all the evidence and study exhibited in the mass of literature and documents on the subject is no more than time-wasting drivel?
However misled and wrongheaded some explorers into the unexplained phenomena of Nature may be, I hope Mr Blish would agree that there is a tremendous amount of explaining needed? And as constructive criticism is always better than the other kind, is it too much to ask Mr Blish what he thinks makes us tick?
Leslie Gardner 36 New Street, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon.
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