Other issues are equally noteworthy. The main character in a novel may be likened to a dummy--or a model--created by the author for the purposes of expressing the author’s observations and, in effect, for “playing out” his ideas. Though the character is pure fiction--i.e., any similarities to known real persons are coincidental--an effective novel must have believable characters, recognizable through behavior traits identified by readers from their own everyday experience. So too the social scientist uses models--analytic dummies--to further his purposes. Dissecting the anatomy of a political model and putting its characters under close examination can teach something about the most fruitful relationships between real persons and fictional characters for purposes of describing and explaining behavior. Often the fact that the novelist is actually building models is obscured by the amount of detail he pours into his molds which then makes his models seem remarkably lifelike. While the models of the social scientist are usually much further removed from correspondence to real persons, the properties built into them must be “believable” too. Another area of inquiry can be opened up if one accepts the cues offered by Dr. Blotner’s selections and analyses. Political novels seem to reflect mostly the seamy side of political life, emphasizing conflict as the sole theme meriting attention. Through their characters, authors seem to place great blame for social ills on political institutions as detached from other institutions or on individual devils. Is this a reliable and full revelation of politics? As a matter of fact, novels too seem caught in two opposite kinds of explanations: the great man and the great historical force. Each has significant limitations and accompanying fallacies yet each assumes great plausibility at the hands of a skillful storyteller. Inevitably the novelist dramatizes, and in real life the political actor dramatizes too. Unfortunately, the tendency to dramatize reinforces the neglect of the mundane factors which often influence crucial political action and choice.