I heard about a rejection letter recently that deserves preservation in these days of big-time word-merchandising. “I cannot recall reading,” it said without irony, “a novel as learned, as intelligent, as witty as this, and one with so exact a sense of its place and time. However it is not right for us.” Think long on all that tells you about “us.” A fistful of such letters may reinforce a novelist’s suspicion that most publishers’ first readers are chimpanzees. In less paranoid moments, he may recognize the voices assumed by human beings trying to pretend they aren’t serving a…