Patti Smith: Babel (Putnam/Longman)

TEMPTING AS IT MAY BE, it would be far too easy to dismiss Patti Smith merely as a literary quack and let it go at that. Still, after being confronted with a collection of her writings, one can’t help but be left with the feeling of not having read a finished, cohesive work so much as a loosely-knit series of excuses for publishing a book.