accurate in surface detail, technicallynskillful and interesting, but divorcednfrom any center of values and devoid ofnany synthesizing interpretive or evaluativenvision. Wisdom, of course, does notnlie on the periphery. Indeed, neitherndoes accurate description that penetratesnto any significant degree belownthe surface of human experience.nAnyone who reads much contemporarynfiction knows that Seattle does notnlack company on the periphery. WhennJohn Gardner asserted in an article andnOn Moral Fiction that moral afiirmationnis the most fiindamental artistic value,nthat “a man writes a novel to find outnwhat he can honestly maintain, not withnhis head but with all his nature,” thatn”true art treats ideals, afSrming andnclarifying the Good, the True, and thenBeautiful,” his position was considered anradical heresy within modern literarynorthodoxy and vras summarily dismissednin liberal quarters. And even this lonenvoice was probably motivated as muchnby a desire to startle and provoke as byngenuine commitment. In a recent posthumousnarticle in the New York TimesnBook Review, Gardner backs away fromnhis earlier position. It is true, as he saysnthere, that in art a little meaning can go anlong way, but the current vogue is tonmake a very litde meaning go a very longnway,nJoyce Carol Oates’s A BloodsmoornRomance illustrates another variety ofnwriting on the periphery. This novelndoes dabble with themes and meaningsnand, through bludgeoning irony, conveysnjudgments; but I can’t remembernsubjecting myself to a more intellectuallynand morally vacuous 615 pages.nOates is a one-woman publishing industry.nThis is her l4th novel; she hasndone 11 collections of short stories, sixnbooks of poetry, two plays, three booksnof criticism, and a remarkable number ofnpieces in periodicals. A BloodsmoornRomance suggests an answer to the obviousnquestion of how she finds time tonwrite so many books. In the case of thisnnovel, it is a matter of selecting a fewngimmicks and then pouring out unchecked,nuncriticized, the flux of a fertilenimagination.nHer principal gimmick here derivesnfrom Doctorow’s Ragtime; she simplynapplies his method to an earlier periodnof American history. The story focusesnon the late- 19th-century family of JosiahnQuincy Zinn and his five daughters.nThere is a parodic nod to Little Womennand romances of the period, particularlynto those of Hawthorne. The trick consistsnin bringing the family membersninto contact with the major historicalnfigures and events of that time, while atnthe same time providing trivial periodndetail. The lives of the Zinn family touchnthose of such figures as Emerson, Edison,nTwain, Garfield’s assassin, Madame Blavatsky,nMary Baker Eddy, and manynmore. After the first 50 pages, the readernwith the slightest knowledge of Americannhistory and literature can predictnwhich people and events will be draggednin. Oates had to stretch to snare them all,nas in the case of the people and events ofnthe Western frontier. Her approach tonhistorical accuracy is describing suchntrivia as what deodorizing substancesnwomen put under their arms, exactlynhow and how frequently laundry wasndone, what books were read and whatnsongs sung, etc.nAs in the case of Ragtime, the items ofnhistory come from headlines and popularnhistory and provide little more than ancaricature of American history. And thenlicense taken with historical personsnraises questions of taste and literarynethics. It is objectionable, for example,nto see Mark Twain portrayed as a lecherousnstage-door sugar daddy engaged innkinky sex with one of the 23nn daughters.nFiction and history are blurred furthernby the appearance of Henry James’s DaisynMiller as a historical person. There is ancleverness in all this, but it gets out ofnhand.nA second gimmick is the use of thenprudish Episcopalian spinster narrator.nThis involves many addresses to then”dear reader” and a tedious amount ofnnnauthorial digressing, moralizing, and disclaiming.nElisions such as “confus’d” arenthrown in to contribute to the periodnflavor of the style and djction. This narrativenvoice is the vehicle for heavyhandednand excruciatingly tediousnironic criticisms of Victorian moralitynand attitudes toward women. Oatesnstands up and knocks down a straw Mrs.nGrundy so many times that eventuaUynnot even chafi” remains. And to make anneasy and obsolete target even more helpless,nshe exaggerates 19th-century pruderynto a ludicrous extreme. We are told,nfor example, that one of the daughters:nwas never in that unfortunate statentermed nudity: she was always partlynclad while doing her toilette, andnbathed whilst attired in a muslinngown, that she might be spared thenexigences of her own flesh, the wfiichnwould have certainly surprised andndisgusted her. Even as a very smallnchild, at an age when such anomaliesnhave been known to occur, she hadnnever sought to touch herself, andnhad, evinced very little curiosity, as tonthe morbid nether regions of hernbody: to her credit be it said!nShe eventuaUy makes the inspection andnfinds she has a six-inch penis. This kindnof joke (and the book offers litde more)nwears annoyingly thin long before thenback cover. The same goes for the narrator’snfrequent unsubdy fronic referencesnto “frail female capabiUties” andnher own “feeble woman’s brain.”nOates’s self-indulgent excesses resultnin disconcerting inconsistencies. For instance,nwe are supposed to believe thatnthe daughter just mentioned was an avidnreader of Whitman. Moreover, thenquaintly mid-19th-century narratorn(she is really too archaic for the laterndecades of the century), though shenends her story precisely at midnight,nDecember 31,1899, informs us of eventsnwell into the 20th century. It is supposednto be the same narrator throughout, yetnsome chapters lapse into an entirely differentnand contemporary style and tone.nIn short, the implausibUities and loosenends are legion. And only part of thesenJune 1983n