who live in harmony under benevolentnmlers. But an ice age is threatening theninhabitants and their planet with extinction.nAt first, the people believe that thenimmense black wall which Canopus,ntheir rulers, had instructed them tonbuild, will protect them from the encroachingnglaciers. Later, this hope abandoned,nthey await their promisednremoval to the clement planet, Rohanda,nonly to discover that it, too, is beingndestroyed by ice.nThe Making of the Representative fornPlanet 8 narrates the inward journey,nliterally and figuratively, of thencourageous, nature-loving inhabitants ofnPlanet 8 who must learn to live inncramped, fetid ice caves, to swaddlenthemselves in animal pelts for protectionnagainst the cold, and to eat dried meatnand tasteless algae to stave oflf starvation.nThese trials of fortitude, wit, and sinew,ncoupled with the knowledge of their ineluctablenfate, provide Miss Lessing’snnovel with a certain grandeur in keepingnwith the kinds of questions that the lastnrepresentatives of the planet consider:nWhat is the substance of thought?nWhere do thoughts come from? How arenthey formed? What is memory? Where isnit located? Why can one never describenthe atmosphere of a dream?nIt is a tribute to Miss Lessing that shenshould pose such questions in a work ofnfiction, but it is a shame that she is notnable to use them effectively. Her plot isncomposed almost exclusively of inquirynand introspection, but on such a cosmicnscale and in such vague, tenuousnlanguage that it loses any personal impact.nAs the planet is devastated bynbrutal winds, massing ice, and bodykilling,nmind-numbing cold, the sterilitynwhich follows somehow infiltrates thenpages of her text, robbing her charactersnof the very spark of life and tenacity ofnmind that she is trying to portray.nX he daunting metaphysical questionsnraised by Miss Lessing find no place in AnSeparate Development. In fact, quitenthe contrary is true: Hope’s interestnfocuses almost exclusively on a study ofn3()inChronicles of Cttltarenappearances and exteriors. Obviously, inna book about the coming of age of anyoung man in South Africa, exteriorsnhave an inordinate importance, but thenbarbarity of South African racial prejudicencan be properly shown only by concentratingnon interior developmentsn—of mind, emotions, and spirit. It is impossiblento shake the feeling that thisnauthor wrote with one eye on the aiticsnand the other on the typewriter: the firstnline concerns the protagonist’s exposingnhimself. With a flourish ofHope’s pen, anflat-footed, kinky-haired, slightlynbreasted, questionably complexionednyouth, the “hero,” has been elevated vianlanguage’s post-Structuralist belief innitself as an absolute to the status of thenliterary symbol.nMr. Hope ostensibly deplores thentreatment of black and colored humanitynin South Africa, but he treats womenneither as hysterical females or, more frequendy,nas sexual service stations. Just asnthe protagonist runs away after beingndiscovered in a compromising situationnwith his date for the graduation dance,nthe author runs away from the crucialnquestions concerning the effects ofnhatred, violence, and fear. DnExplorations of the National PsychenAnthony P. Dunbat: Against thenGrain: Southern Radicals and Prophetsn1929-1939; University Press ofnVirginia; Charlottesville.nRichard Reeves: American Journey:nTraveling With Tocqueville in Searchnof Democracy in America; Simon &nSchuster; New York.nby Charles A. MosernJuach of these books treats an importantnfacet of the American experiencenwhich has helped to definenour national character: Against thenGrain deals with Southern Agrariannradicalism, with emphasis upon thenideological decade of the 1930’s;nAmerican Journey deals, in a broadernand more haphazard fashion, with thengeneral nature of the American polityntoday, 150 years after Tocqueville’snvisit to this country. The two books arenorganized quite differently. Mr. Dunbar,nSouthern Field Secretary fornAmnesty International, has written andetailed historical account of a socialnmovement centered on a limitednDr. Moser is professor of Slavic at thenGeorge Washington University in Washington,nD.C.nnnnumber of individuals and organizations,non the basis of records kept bynsome of them—especially HowardnKester, Secretary of the Fellowship ofnReconciliation from 1926 to 1934, andnthe Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union,nwhich reached its zenith in the mid-n1930’s. Mr. Reeves is a professional writernfrom New York who decided to retracenTocqueville’s steps as a means of “updating”nthe latter’s observations onnAmerican democracy. In the abstractnReeves’s idea is a good one, but innpractice—given the vast social changesnthat have occurred in the interim—nthe scheme has limited usefulness.nReeves emerges with a collage ofnquotations from Tocqueville as well asnhis travel notes; with the opinions ofnpresent-day community leaders (mostlynliberal in persuasion) who just happen tonlive in some of the places Tocquevillenvisited; with miscellaneous scraps whichnhe considers characteristic for somenreason; and with his own conclusions onnvarious matters. There is, however, ansimilarity between the Dunbar andnReeves books: both suffer from a tendencynto get lost in detail.nAgainst the Grain is the story of angroup of idealistic young men andnwomen who, for the most part, began asnChristians but adopted a political pro-n