Books: How to Laugh at Communism

DON CAMILLO'S DILEMMA (255 pp.)—Giovanni Guareschi—Farrar, Straus & Young ($3).

For seven years Camillo the priest and Peppone the Communist have been meeting in combat for the souls and minds of the inhabitants of the now famed (if unnamed) village in Italy's Po River Valley.

With a few rare exceptions, tough, quickwitted Don Camillo wins each engagement over earnest, bumbling Mayor Peppone and his comrades. But who wins the elections and continues to preside over the municipal affairs of Don Camillo's flock? Communist Peppone and the party. This is Don Camillo's—and Italy's—dilemma.

Fierce-mustachioed, fiercely...