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Sir: You ran Sir Charles Snow's photo in a shaggy, angular Russian coat and called it a "special Russian academic garb" [Oct. 30]. You were wrong. It is the well-known Caucasian burka (pronounced boor-kah), an everyday, all purpose sleeveless coat originated by the Circassians, Chechens and other mountaineers of the northern Caucasus. In October 1963, Sir Charles visited Russia to receive from the University of Rostov an honorary doctorate of philological sciences, and to be Mikhail Sholokhov's personal guest. It must have been on that occasion that Sir Charles wore the burka as a bit of local color, but certainly not to march in any academic procession. The degree was arranged for Sir Charles by Sholokhov as a return compliment for the role Sir Charles had played in the bestowing of an honorary doctorate on Sholokhov at Scotland's Saint Andrews University in April 1962, the first Russian writer to be so honored in a British university since Turgenev's honorary doctor ate at Oxford in 1879. I was born and grew up in Rostov. That coat of felt and goat's wool is surely familiar to me, even though it does not at all belong in any groves of academe.
ALBERT PARRY
Colgate University
Hamilton, N.Y.
Biblical Weather Report
Sir: In his attempt to update the Bible [Oct. 23] so that it reads like today's newspaper in a common-denominator prose, Translator Speiser sacrifices vision along with poetic diction. The opening lines of Genesis sound like a weather report on Hurricane Hilda instead of an image or symbol of the active power of God brooding over dumb creation and awakening a response.
CYRUS J. PURDY
White Plains, N.Y
Sir: Comparing the King James Bible with the version cobbled up by the Anchor Press, Mr. Webster might justifiably say that they have transformed, transferred, removed, changed, transported and ravished the story of the Bible.
A. J. BALDERMAN
San Diego
Boomp
Sir: Jim Phelan apologizes "to TIME for having stolen a vivid line from you—five months before you wrote it [Oct. 23]." But for technique and style you both owe at least a nod to the old English prayer book. The comment seems to have been inspired by the lines in the litany: "From Ghoulies, and Ghosties, and three-legged beasties, and things that go boomp in the night, Good Lord, deliver us."
ALLAN W. WENDT
Columbia, S. C.
Ask for Men of Balanchine