In response to:
Inscrutable Genius from the December 20, 1984 issue
To the Editors:
Reading Lady Annan’s excellent review of Ivy: The Life of I. Compton-Burnett [NYR, December 20, 1984], I have encountered, with bewilderment, the sentence: “Benjamin Britten said that ‘if Giacometti sculptures could talk, they would speak like the characters in [Compton-Burnett’s] books.’ ” This “brilliantly evocative remark” was made by Bernard Berenson, not Benjamin Britten. In reporting it to Ms. Spurling, I did not think it necessary to spell Berenson’s name in full.
John Pope-Hennessy
New York City
