of Women’s Wear Daily, making thentriumph of style-cum-idea complete.nBuckley’s persona had finally begun tonconnote his life accomplishments. Henthen started to write spy fiction. He engenderedna hero (in whose image.-‘) whon(all indications are there) was an attemptnat reification a la mode. Fightingnevil alone—even the evil of communistnpower which is so much ampler than angang in a frontier town—is the oldestnAmerican tradition of fiction. Thus, ifnBuckley’s team somehow failed to trackndown and annihilate all the evils lurkingnin the jungle of the Liberal Culture, thenoriginator of National Review has tonfulfill the code of honor himself, evennif all he has for weapons are a Smith-nCorona and the best-seller list. I thusnsalute Mr. William F. Buckley’s style asnsomething which single-handedly bringsnback the cultural wistfulness of philosopher-dandiesnwhose consciences are sensitizednto their cerebral responsibilities.nWe , then, are witnessing a curiousncultural spectacle: the renascence ofnconservative idealism. For decades, thenliberal cognoscenti did everything theyncould to relegate conservative idealismn—a time-honored sentiment and propensity—tonthe musty attic of moral attitudesnwhere school textbooks with Victoriannlithography are gathering dust.nOn the other hand, some conservatives,nespecially those of the fiscal-economicnvariety, did everything they could tontorpedo it on the grounds that theirs wasnthe ideology of pragmatism and commonnsense, of sober ideas, not do-goodism, ofnpractical problem-solvers, not romanticnknights. However, in a social climatenwhich emphasizes newness at any price,nfifty years of liberal sway has made thenconservative insistence on traditionalnanswers the very essence of newness.nBuckley understood correctly that anewnconservative idealism that could benshouldered as the mantle of noblessenoblige and symbolize a decision to servencould be promoted as the vision of a futurenbuilt on the values of the past.nMaking conservative ideas chic and en­ndowing them with a certain cachet maynsound flippant but it is in fact a seriousnconcept: once something is perceived asnfashionable, mass acceptance will eventuallynfollow, as it did with Americannliberalism.nThe spy novel may be as good, if not anbetter, tool as any to perpetuate andnpopularize conservative idealism. Butnthe novel of espionage has undergone, innthe second part of the 20th century,nquite a metamorphosis: it has becomena vehicle to present no less serious anstruggle than that between right andnwrong, good and evil. Following thenpath of the American western, the spynnovel has become a modern moralitynplay, especially in the works of Greenenand le Carre, which are, most frequently,nindictments of a blurred—or even lacknof—morality. The tradition of mysterynfiction (Hugo, Sue, Poe, The Moonstonenand so on) is structured on anspecific literary mastery: its practitionernmust know how to fuse suspense withnratiocination, how to inject the page-nBooks in the Mailnturning imperative (thrill) with mentalnspeculations as to who.” why.-” how.”nHowever, in our time, the post-Spillane,npost-Fleming era, eroticism of the fastbut-compelling-and-bluntnvarietynhas become an indispensable ingredient.nThere’s an irony, therefore, that inntexts which occasionally gorge on sexualnpastiche, a certain lack of expertise preventsnBuckley from giving lightness andnthe charm of innuendo to the dialogue,nfrom suffusing the OSS (obligatory sexnscenes) with something more than thenregular fare of the orgasmic racket andnplastic violence of the current bestnsellers. The gesturing and talking in bed,nas well as every stab at descriptive evaluationnof the accompanying sensations,nseems to be germane to experience; innBuckley’s novels women with “palenbreasts” abound, and after a few samplesnit becomes obvious that Buckley is muchnmore at ease when he writes about sailing.nPenetrating riddles of faith and existence,nor the penetration of St. Augustine’snsincerity, or Boethius’s dilemmas.nNo. 12’Kaiserhofstrasse by Valentin Senger; translated by Ralph Manheim; E. P.nDutton; New^ York. The true story of a Jewish family who survived, undetected, insidennazi Germany without going “underground.”nThe United States in the 1980’s edited by Peter Duignan and Alvin Rabushka;nHoover Institution Press; Stanford, California. A collection of essays by respectednspecialists analyzing central issues and policy options for the 80’s in both domestic issues andnforeign affairs.nMilitant Islam by G. H. Jansen; Harper & ROTV; New York. An analysis of the militancynof Islam from 1800 to the present, and an assessment of the future of Islam.nNational Health Care in Great Britain: Lessons for the U.S.A. by John C. Goodman;nThe Fisher Institute; Dallas, Texas. An analysis of the economic effects of socializednmedicine on Britain’s patients, doctors and hospitals, and what that system could do tonmedical care in the United States.nNew Native American Drama: Three Plays by Hanay Geiogamah; University ofnOklahoma Press; Norman, Oklahoma. The first collection of plays by an Indian playwright:nBody Indian, Foghorn and 49.nPunitive Medicine by Alexander Podrabinek; Karoma/Caroline House Publishers;nOttavi’a, Illinois. Description of psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union, by a dissident Russiannparamedic now in exile in Siberia.nThe Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures editednby Suzanne Levine and Harriet Lyons with Joanne Edgar, Ellen Sweet, Mary Thom;nParagon Books/G. P. Putnam’s Sons; New York. A mostly pictorial account of the accomplishments,ntrials and tribulations of women over the last decade, as seen throughnfeminist eyes.nnn)nJuly Au^u$*t 1980n