tions and “manipulations of publicnopinion” by later presidents —npresumably a reference to thenfashionable picture of the VietnamnWar. However, it is by nonmeans clear that Roosevelt’s allegedndeviousness was significant;nwhile he did obfuscate thenfact that the United States wasnmoving toward war with Germany,nhe did not conceal his policies,nand each individual stepnwas certainly supported by publicnopinion. In his public statementsnabout the “Greer incident,”nRoosevelt did clearly misrepresentnthe facts. His misstatementsnwere quickly exposed bynthe isolationists, but he did notnlose any support because of this.nDallek rightly emphasizes thatnRoosevelt was not as blind or irresponsiblenin his policy towardnthe Soviets as has often beennclaimed. Yet he also claims thatnRoosevelt accepted “that EasternnEurope was a Soviet spherenof control” which, in fact, hendid not do. Thus, Dallek’s defensenof the administration’snpropaganda whitewash of Stalin’snregime is rather feeble, particularlynsince he frankly admitsnPerceptiblesnJohn Irving: 3 by Irving (SettingnFree the Bears; ThenWater-MethodMan;The 158-nPound Marriage); RandomnHouse; New York.nJohn Irving wrote these threennovels before he wrote ThenWorld According to Garp, Henis certainly a novelist whosenearlier works are worthy of investigation.nHis prose is precise,nand it has an idiosyncratic rhythmnand flow which make it attractivenand involving. It is justnthis kind of literary texture intonwhich momentous observations,njudgments and sagacities cannbe factored. Whether Irving isnusing his gifts to create formn40inChronicles of Culturenthat then-contemporary publicopinionnsurveys showed that thisnwas not really needed to securenthe public’s acceptance of lendleasenaid to the Soviets. Nor cannDallek justify similar foolishnpropaganda about China, whichnRoosevelt actually described inn1943 as “one of the great democraciesnof the world.” Roosevelt’snpolicies toward China are onlynrelatively more defensible thannthose toward the U.S.S.R., fornvirtually all the advice he receivednwas defective in one waynor another. It is hard to justifyneither his initial policy of all-out,nuncritical support for ChiangnKai-shek (against the advice ofnboth military and civilian experts)nor the later attempt tonpush the nationalists into a fundamentallynunworkable coalitionnwith the communists.nStill, as Dallek shows, Rooseveltnled the United Statesnthrough twelve exceptionally difficultnyears, and he was brilliantlynsuccessful in surmounting thenmost immediate dangers ourncountry faced. That is a lot morenthan can be said for any of hisnsuccessors. (AJL) •nand fill it with adequate contentnis, on the evidence of these samples,ndebatable. His exquisitenway with words makes him anwizard at concealing the banalitynof what he has to say. Anyway,nwe can, with a clear conscience,nattest that The 158-nPound Marriage, another probeninto the marital limbo of ournage, is quite intriguing, althoughnit settles for vaguely poetic moodsnrather than using any well-digestednreasoning. We’re afraidnthat Mr. Irving’s concept of thenhuman condition, instead of beingnstructured by moral insightsnand social history, may be influencednmore by pop sociology,nwith its cliche visions of sexualnathletics —and that’s always andanger.n* * *nMax Crawford: The BadnCommunist; Harcourt Brace ]ovanovich;nNew York.nThis is a novel of terrorist andnradical-chic politics during thenearly 70’s in San Francisco’snBay Area. The story is populatednby “Maoist thugs,” liberalnlawyers, “forty-year-old flowernchildren,” homosexuals, bisexuals,n”psychodrama gurus,” pacifists,ndope dealers, frat-brothers-turned-terrorists,nsneaks,npathological liars and Stanfordnprofessors. There is not a likablencharacter in the whole book.nThough pseudonyms are usuallynused, someone who was caughtnup in those turbulent times maynrecognize many of the people,nplaces and incidents. The plotnrevolves around events that actuallynoccurred; the rescue of anCalifornia prison inmate and thenmurder of a guard, a radicalnStanford professor who is fired,nand a split in the ranks of thenBay Area’s Maoist “collectives.”nThe effects of left-wing moonshinenhave trapped the author innan ideological dilemma. He isnfond of Marxism but detestsnMarxists, or at least those varietiesnspawned by the upheavalsnof the 60’s and early 70’s. Resolvingnsuch a problem is not anvery palatable task for a novelist.n(JTF)nAnatoleBroyard:MeM, Womennand Other Anticlimaxes;nMethuen; New York.nNew York City people, as F.nScott Fitzgerald might havensaid, are different from Connecticutnpeople. They havenmore problems. Comparednto life in Connecticut, everynmoment in New York Citynis an emergency.nnnIn this opening paragraph ofnthe first article, Anatole Broyardnintroduces the prevailingntheme of this volume. Mr. Broyardnis a literary critic for thenNew York Times, but most ofnthe fifty brief articles in thisncollection were published innother sections of the Times betweenn1977 and 1979.nAs a refugee from Manhattan,nhe now lives in a typical residentialncommunity in southernnConnecticut. He has not forgottennthe petty irritations andndeteriorating aspects of city life,nbut he has been a resident of exurbianlong enough to have discardednany illusions aboutn”country life”:nWe say that we live in thencountry, but exurbia is notncountry. It is, in my case atnleast, a grandiose housingnproject with almost none ofnthe pastoral values or formsnthat the word country usednto suggest… We merely residenhere, in a benign exilenfrom the city, in a landscapenthat strikes us as so undifferentiatednthat we feel impellednto punctuate it withnpools and tennis courts.nHis present house is two hundrednyears old, and Broyardnmuses on various facets of owningnsuch a place:nPeople in New York Citynhave psychotherapists, andnpeople in the suburbs havenhandymen. While anxietynin the city is existential, innthe country it is structural.nA therapist holds your lifentogether, and a handymannholds together your house.nTo move to the country isnto transfer paranoia fromnpeople to things. Andnthings are even less permanent,nless reliable, thannpeople.nSo, what’s new.’ Only that Mr.nBroyard isn’t really a New Yorkernbut a Creole who has nevernforgotten his roots. (WAH) Dn