The one saving grace of Kundera’snbook is that it is not pretentious andnthat he at least makes a sincere effortnto examine issues and paradoxes thatnothers may find interesting. The samencannot be said for W. M. Spackman’s AnPresence with Secrets. Spackman’snnovel reads like a Barbara Cartlandndimestore romance, yet it is dottednwith foreign phrases, literary allusionsnto exceedingly obscure works and authors,nand echoes of other writersnSpackman must have read and admiredn— notablv Henry James. The novel givesnus the romantic life of Hugh Tatnall. ancharacter notably devoid of interest. Wenwatch Hugh go through romances fromnyouth to adulthood, from freewheelingnindependence to settled maturity. SincenSpackman shows us nothing of value orninterest along the way, one can legitimatelynask about Hugh’s life, “so what.'”nThe book is excessively sentimental andnneedlessly obscure; its style is laboriousnand unnecessarily complex—as if HenrynJames had somehow been commissionednto write a love story for Harlequinnromances. It is sad to see such worksnpublished when there must be greaterntalents than Spackman at work innAmerican letters.nFor critics and readers alike who admirenstyle and excellent portraiture.nHannah’s Ray is a work of genius. Hisncharacters, so broken by existence andnso lost in their own confusion, strikenchords of responsiveness in the modernnexistentialist drifter, for these charactersnare but bits and pieces of the giantnriddle of existence itself. The depth ofnHannah’s portrayals, the complexitynand insights he can achieve in 113 pages,nvs. 228 pages for Kundera and 161npages for Spackman. bespeak an authornwho will likely be recognized as one ofnthe most significant of his generation.nIt is the power of Hannah’s writing innRay which captivates and. at the samentime, appalls. It is the power of communication,nthis precision of style andnexcellence of form, which separatenRay from the mediocrity representednby The Book of Laughter and Forgettingnand A Presence with Secrets. Kunderanand Spackman could do well innlooking to Hannah, for he has outclassednthem in capturing the spirit of life innthe anxiety-ridden modern era. Butnhardly anyone can look to him for thenanswers and illuminations that we expectnfrom writers who. by dint of theirnmoral impulse and responsibility, havenWhy Terrorism?nClaire Sterling: The Terror Network:nHolt, Rineharl & Winston;nNew York.nby Ernst Halperinnibis book has created a sensation innWashington because it challenges a basicnassumption of our foreign policy—ni.e. that at least in Europe, if not elsenwhere, the Soviet Union and the UnitednStates have a common interest in stabilitynin order to maintain the status quo.nClaire Sterling does not give a systematicnhistory of the various groups thatnmake up the international terroristnmovement. For that one has to go tonaccounts of terrorism in individualncountries, such as Yonah Alexander’snTerrorism in Italy and Jillian Becker’snstudy of the Bader-Meinhof gang. Hitler’snChildren. As her title indicates.nMiss Sterling is mainly concerned withnthe links between these groups. Shendemonstrates, first, that these links gonso far beyond occasional contacts as tonconstitute a veritable international network,nand second, that this network isnsponsored by the Soviets. Moscow providesnboth arms and training to the terroristngroups. Extensive training facilitiesnare maintained in the Soviet Unionnitself as well as in its European satellitesnand client states, Cuba and SouthnDr. Halperin is professor of politicalnscience at Boston University and authornof Terrorism in Latin America.nnnbecome the grand explicators and interpretersnof their epoch, generation, countrynor culture. Subhumanity. howeverninsightfully depicted, will always renmain a lower level of both civilizationnand the contemporary human condition.nIt would be interesting to seenHannah’s abilities measured against annattempt to deal with human beings andnhumanness. QnYemen. In spite of substantial ideologicalndifferences, the Soviet relationshipnwith the second major sponsor of internationalnterrorism. Colonel Qaddafi ofnLibya, is one of friendly cooperation, notnrivalry.nMinor errors are well nigh inevitablenin a book of this scope, and one mightnquarrel with some of Sterling’s assessments.nHowever, the factual evidencenwhich she presents is incontrovertible.nIt is not new, though, and it was all alreadynknown to Western intelligencenservices and had been published innbooks and newspapers before. It pointsnto an inescapable conclusion; Sovietnsponsorship of international terrorismnis on such a scale that it can only benexplained as resulting from an explicit,nhigh-level policy decision of the Sovietnleadership. That is the point at whichnmany balk: they accept the evidence butnreject the conclusion and its truthfulness.nAmong them we find not only thendwindling crowd of those who still havenillusions about the nature of the Sovietnregime, but also hard-nosed analystsnwho have spent a lifetime in Sovietnstudies, and experienced policymakers,nstatesmen with impeccably anticommunistncredentials.nMiss Sterling is puzzled by this “officialnflight from reality,” by the stubbornnrefusal of Western governments, includingnour own, to put the pieces togethernand draw the unavoidable vkioxencesnfrom inexorably accumulatingnevidence. She asks herself, “Why?” andnM H H M H ^ H H i rnSeptember/October 1981n