Books: A Second Look

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Near the end of this remarkable guided tour of the Chinese mind, the author observes that Peking has become the proper subject "not of the political mathematician but of the sympathetic psychologist." As just the sort of observer he calls for, Bloodworth, who was the Far Eastern correspondent of the London Observer for twelve years, ranges deftly and wittily through Chinese history and literary legend to find the ideas that shape Communist behavior today: the ancient maxims for guerrilla warfare expounded by the 4th century B.C. strategist Sun Wu ("Do not fight a static war, and do not besiege cities"); the Robin Hood-like legend of Men of the Marshes, dating from the 13th century, that justifies Mao's own role as the righteous bandit against the evil established order when he was waging civil war from the caves of Yenan. The puns and purposeful ambiguities of the Chinese language are explored, illuminating the Red Guards' raucous wall posters. China's hostility toward the outside world is as old as the Chinese sense of superiority. As a result, in China's foreign policy, the nation's pride is always in conflict with its innate pragmatism. It should be no surprise, Bloodworm says, that a Chinese Communist still feels closer to a Nationalist Chinese than to a foreign Communist. And sooner or later, Bloodworth suggests, Peking and Taiwan will reach some sort of accommodation, discovering that they have not been "really enemies but just bad friends."

THE PUZZLEHEADED GIRL: FOUR NOVELLAS by Christina Stead. 255 pages. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. $6.95.

Until The Man Who Loved Children was republished to considerable acclaim in 1965, Australia's Christina Stead was relatively little known and appreciated in the U.S. The four novellas in The Puzzleheaded Girl should firmly establish her reputation as a writer who can make the familiar meaningful without gimmickry. It is not without some reason that her work has been compared to that of Nabokov and Isak Dinesen. Her essential theme in The Puzzleheaded Girl is rootlessness. Her characters are continually trying to flee themselves. Europeans come to America only to find that they and their new country are incompatible; Americans go to Europe and dream of coming home. Miss Stead also fences with the discontents and ambiguities of big-city life. In one story, an alcoholic who has buckled under urban pressure "longs for the simple rest of a child or a woman or a dog." Yet he knows that "a man wants more, much more." Wit, satire, views on social, moral and intellectual history —the author offers them with a refinement and subtlety that provide fresh insights into the daily experiences most people share.

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JANE BOWLES. 431 pages. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $6.95.