Unsent Letters

Although he admits to being a particularly poor correspondent, British novelist and critic Bradbury proclaims that he does compose letters in his head but just doesn't write them down. These irreverent notessamples of those he has imagined but never committed to paperare put-downs, indeed: absurd, ironic letters to imaginary correspondents, sometimes signed with imaginary names, about ``art and creativity, research and scholarship, publishing and editing, earning a living and making a crust,'' writing for the art market, TV or posterity, about writers' lives and spouses, about great books projected and even greater books lost or abandoned. Since Bradbury has spent much time in the U.S., many of these letters poke fun at American people, customs and institutions. Whether Americans will enjoy them or respond favorably to Bradbury's forced, sophomoric humor is a question that only individual readers can determine, but certainly some will wish that he had stuck to fiction and literary criticism. First serial to the New York Times Book Review. (July)