The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather’s Romanticism by Susan J. Rosowski (review)

Reviews 273 of the world’s finest, developed a library school that ranks with the best, and developed a reputation as an excellent essayist and lecturer. Retirement did not make Powell retiring; he has also done the unusual by becoming a more versatile and productive writer in the nearly two decades since leaving U.C.L.A. As he explains, “I needed constant activity of mind and body to keep up my spirits.” The publication of Californian Classics (1971) and Southwest Classics (1974) confirmed his reputation as a critic, a reputation long building with various essays, and Powell has also published four novels during the past ten years: The Blue Train (1977), The River Between (1979), El Morro (1984), and Portrait of My Father (1986). Fic­ tion, in particular, has engaged Powell; he wrote in his journal in 1969, “I must open a new creative vein; only then can I manage to live on in this violent modern world, must find my way again to a state of passionate belief in what I am doing.” Unfortunately, such passionate glimpses into the inner man are neces­ sarily few in this brief book. As was true of his earlier autobiography, Powell again stresses the friends and circumstances that have enlivened his life, a rich cast indeed: Edwin Castagna, William Everson, Ward Ritchie, Richard Harvill, Henry Miller, among many others, and always Powell’s talented wife Fay. The actual autobiographical essay covers only 131 pages, but it is supple­ mented by an invaluable Checklist of Publications covering the years from 1919 to mid-1986, assembled by Robert Mitchell and Betty Rosenberg. There is also an interesting collection of photographs. Don’t think I’m damning Life Goes On with faint praise. Powell’s fans, as well as those seeking an introduction to his work, will be rewarded here. Given its brevity, this book covers much ground and contains flashes of Powell at his best. His observations on age and aging, and on how he and Fay have adjusted to that reality, are especially fine. GERALD HASLAM Sonoma State University The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather’s Romanticism. By Susan J. Rosowski. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. 284 pages, $22.95.) Stating that romanticism “concerns a mode of perception by which the imagination is used in its synthesizing or creative powers to transform and give meaning to an alien or meaningless material world,” Susan J. Rosowski offers a comprehensive, incisive analysis of the romantic impulse in the novels of 274 Western American Literature Willa Cather. Rosowski argues persuasively that the Cather fictional canon may be seen as moving through three distinct romantic phases: the early phase, in which Cather celebrates imaginative possibilities by infusing her prosaic materials with visionary or supernatural experiences; the middle phase, in which she probes the conflicts between the imagination and commercial values; and the late phase, in which Cather’soptimistic romanticism gives way increasingly to the Gothic mode and its recognition of the evil, chaos, and nullity of the world and of human experience. Never does Rosowski distort the novels to fit this paradigm: it proves to be a practical and often startlingly illuminating approach to Cather, and it does much to explain, for example, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, that singularly Gothic late novel which has always seemed so anomalous to even the most appreciative Cather critics. Similarly commendable is Rosowski’s happy balancing of analyses of romanti­ cism, details from Cather’spersonal life, and literary criticism. Rosowski illus­ trates how Cather responded to English Romanticism—characterized by an apolitical stance, an appreciation for the commonplace, an interest in the past, and an impulse towards lyricism—while modifying it to suit her seemingly unpromising midwestern materials and her preference for fiction over poetry. Indeed, Rosowski frequently makes persuasive cases for Cather’s conscious utilization of specific English Romantic poems in her novels (e.g.,Keats’s“The Eve of St. Agnes” and O Pioneers!) without letting her book become a dry “influence study.” Likewise, her placing of the novels within the context of Cather’s personal life often leads to important insights: Rosowski notes astutely that the young Cather’s sudden association with a literally new town and...