[In the following review, Ley comments on Fallaci's reactions to the American space program in If the Sun Dies.]

Oriana Fallaci is an Italian journalist who came to the United States a few years ago to have a personal look at the space program and related activities. She came to this task armed with nothing more than the knowledge of a few American science-fiction stories, and she found the impact of advanced science and technology quite disturbing. She interviewed engineers, medical doctors, public relations men and astronauts. Throughout, she had a pronounced tendency to veer off the theme and to ask irrelevant questions.

In fact, she reminds me of a long-dead aunt of mine—whom I am dragging in at this point because one such question is the only thing I really remember about her. I was roughly 8 years old then, and I had saved the lead foil from wine bottles and cast them into a mold that looked like a ship's hull. When said aunt came for a Kaffeeklatsch I proudly showed her my lead boat and told her how I had made it. "But," she said, "what will you do when it explodes?"

Miss Fallaci (though indubitably far more intelligent than my aunt) has a penchant for making queries of this kind at precisely the wrong moment. While being driven to Merritt Island, the site of the Apollo Launch Complex in Florida, she wanted to know what would be done if an astronaut died during the mission. When taking a preliminary psychological test for astronauts (she had the idea of taking all the astronaut's tests, but gave up soon) she was asked the question: "What do you do if you find an addressed and stamped letter in the street?" Her answer: "I'd put it in my handbag" "And then?" the psychologist asked. "Then it will stay there, along with all my own letters."

Her surprise at receiving an indignant reaction is in itself surprising, to put it mildly. Doesn't she know yet that psychologists, with the exception of Dr. Theodore Reik, have no sense of humor? In a similar vein, she pestered astronauts, who would have preferred to do just nothing for half an hour, with questions about "fear" and "courage"—and, again, was wild-eyed with surprise that most of them felt disinclined to engage in philosophical discussions.

The result of all this is a fairly long book. It is not, as she herself stresses, reportage. (No, it isn't; reportage should not contain so many errors of fact.) It is a long diary about her personal reactions to rockets and space and research engineers; it reminds me of a series of waterfalls near Colorado Springs, where one cascade only ceases when it gives birth to another. The whole is addressed to her father, a justification for having taken an interest in the "new things."

I don't know how the book was received in Italy, though I can imagine Italians might have been greatly interested in the impressions made by Americans on their compatriot. But even Italian readers (who, I suppose, are less well informed about the details of the space program than their American counter-parts) must have felt that all these impressions should have been interspersed with a few explanations and factual statements. How If the Sun Dies will affect readers in the United States is something I dare not prophesy. I don't know myself whether I should be amused or not.

One thing that Oriana Fallaci has done to me is to weaken a cherished belief I have held for over 30 years—i.e., that (discounting some kinds of fiction) the idea of books "for men," or "for women," is nonsense. Here, I find I would advise Mr. Reader to look for something more concise and informative, while I would tell Mrs. Reader or Miss Reader to find out for herself.