But This War Had Such Promise

Readers of the more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad in which Doonesbury appears have enjoyed a privileged awareness of what the Vietnam War might have be as conducted by the denizens of Walden Commune. This latest collection of the popular cartoon strip allows the rest of the nation to witness: a private treaty between quarterback B.D. and an ingratiating Viet Cong terrorist named Phred; slightly stoned war correspondent; the home front protestations of Reverend Scot Sloan, an amiable sophist who likes to be referred to as "the fighting young priest who can speak to the young"; and, of course, the philosophical stumblings of the Sunday Liberal himself, Michael J. Doonesbury. *But This War Has Such Promise* may not remove all the anxiety of foreign entaglement, but it should provide some kind of temporary relief. Garry Trudeau is said to be studying for his master's at Yale. While he remains somewaht of an enigma to his biographers, it is widely known that his boyhood idol was John Foster Dulles.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.