Mary Lee Settle's Beulah Quintet: The Price of Freedom by Brian Rosenberg (review)

102Rocky Mountain Review It is in the latter development that Gide's writings appear most problematic . The suspicion that much of his work is an attempt to redeem, by rhetorical means, acts of selfishness or moral weakness is not new, and arises irresistibly whenever one attempts to come to terms with his work as a whole. Pollard's book is an important step in the process of evaluating the moral dimension of Gide's work; the fact that Homosexual Moralist also provides a unique insight into the history of the textual representation of sexual identity adds to its value for anyone interested in issues of gender and sexuality, not just specialists of French literature. M. MARTIN GUINEY Kenyon College BRIAN ROSENBERG. Mary Lee Settle's Beulah Quintet: The Price ofFreedom. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991. 174 p. A critic deciding to focus on West Virginia novelist Mary Lee Settle, as Brian Rosenberg clearly understands, takes on a considerable challenge. Despite almost 40 years of novel writing (The Love Eaters appeared in 1954), despite Book of the Month Club alternate selection (The Kiss ofKin, 1955), despite a National Book Award (Blood Tie, 1978), Settle has yet to attract substantial popular or academic attention. A study of Settle's Beulah Quintet, then, has little previous criticism on which to build and a predictably small readership. In some ways that limited potential audience is unfortunate. This is a lucid exploration of a significant portion of Settle's work—a helpful introduction to her and a solid advance from George Garrett's 1988 Understanding Mary Lee Settle, the only other book-length study. The five novels on which Rosenberg focuses span over 300 years and were composed (over 26 years) in an order different from the order of the events they concern. They are linked by their focus on the Kanawha River region of what is now West Virginia (Canona is modeled on Charleston) and by the blood ties of three central fictional families. Rosenberg supports Settle's contention that the Beulah Quintet is "absolutely one" (162) book and considers the novels in the chronological order of their final arrangement. This study is most interesting and convincing in its exploration of the "unifying consistencies" (18) of the Beulah Quintet. Rosenberg responds with sensitivity and insight to this fiction, noting Settle's repeated choice of those time periods which she describes as "pitch points at which the world changes" (19), her continued focus on the "altering presence of the land" (18), her use of changing language to emphasize the "balance between stasis and change" (20), her concern with "the elusive nature of truth" (21). Equally helpful is his consideration of Settle's form (the multiple points of view, the large casts of characters, the use of flashbacks and flashforwards), his analysis of images (prisons, water, plants), and his exploration of Settle's repeated use of the Creon/Antigone myth to emphasize the tension Book Reviews103 between dictatorship and anarchy which she sees as basic to the American experience. Rosenberg, however, never convincingly distances himself from Settle. A helpful appendix includes the 1987 conversations he had with the author, but he relies too readily on Settle's self-analysis as both basis and support for his interpretations. Arguing that the Beulah Quintet "represents an attempt to apply a European tradition of historical re-creation to American experience and to adapt a largely conservative form to the demands of a revolutionary history and ideology" (xi-xii), Rosenberg provides a full chapter ofbasic introduction to historical fiction. Much of that chapter has almost no direct mention of Settle and may be easily and appropriately skipped or skimmed by readers already familiar with the question of "History in Fiction." Equally skimmable is an overly general discussion of "the process by which popular and especially academic judgments are formed" (2) which prefaces analysis of why response to Settle has been tepid. Rosenberg establishes Settle in the context of European, especially British, historical fiction and provides a host of specific connections with nineteenth-century European fiction, a field he obviously knows well. In contrast, his awareness of American fiction seems dependent on secondary sources, which may be why he...