Books: Strictly from Idaho

THE VALLEY OF VISION (426 pp.)—Vardis Fisher—Abelard ($3.50).

Vardis Fisher's latest volume, the sixth in his ficto-stenographic history of civilization, is less a novel than a pedantic, prurient diatribe against one of the best-publicized kings Israel ever had. Solomon (loth Century B.C.) is presented as a sort of Old Testament Sammy Click with chin whiskers, a tough little opportunist who elbows his way into the big money, marries a glamour girl (Khate, an Egyptian princess), and hires a frustrated poet to ghost his copy—even, it would seem, such copy as the Book of Proverbs....