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Rose Reason
A strict Catholic upbringing in a small Maine factory town leads Rose to develop a self-destructive sense of reason, which she carries with her throughout her life, until a devastating relationship finally helps her to believe in herself.
- GenresRomance
388 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1991
4 people want to read
About the author
Mary Flanagan
13 books1 followerMary Flanagan (1943) is novelist and short-story writer, born in Rochester, New Hampshire, educated at Brandeis University. She moved to Britain in 1969, and the expatriate perspective she employs in some of her work has earned her the inevitable comparisons with Henry James and Wharton. Flanagan is, however, a resolutely contemporary writer, as her debut collection of stories, Bad Girls (1984), proved. She has been praised for her skill with the shorter form, in which she displays subtlety, irony, neat plotting, and stylistic economy. Her novels Trust (1987), a study of the relationships of two women and two men, and the modern Bildungsroman Rose Reason (1990) are, by contrast, large in scope and sprawling in structure, ranging over two continents and long timespans. With the whimsical, sometimes surrealistic short fictions collected in The Blue Woman (1994), Flanagan successfully returned to the form in which she made her name.
(http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages...)
(http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages...)
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December 3, 2019[Written for the Boston Globe August 1992]
At one point in "Rose Reason," Mary Flanagan's third work of fiction (she is the author of "Trust," a novel, and "Bail Girls." a collection of stories), the heroine, Frances (a.k.a. Rose) Mullen, is told: "You are a good listener, Miss Mullen. You have not too strong an identity." This dubious compliment, and Frances' acceptance of it, are two of the many delicate beams of light Flanagan shines into the recesses of her main character's psyche. In fact, the entire novel is not so much a story as a subtle, many-faceted investigation of one woman's inner life. Without relying on a brisk, twisting plot (though there are some nice surprises) or a series of big scenes (though there is an abundance of fine small ones), Flanagan is able to make the reader a full and willing partner in this investigation, and to create, in "Rose Reason," a moving and psychologically precise work.
The book begins with a sweet Maine childhood. Young Frances ice-skates, eats blueberries in milk and maple-sap icicles, listens to her parents dancing and laughing in the den late at night. But this idyllic existence is spoiled, first, glancingly, by the Korean War, and then, more profoundly, by the illness and death of Frances' mother. Her kindly father is easily overpowered by his steel-willed sisters, one of whom takes Frances to live with her in Maine's interior: "a melancholy place ... With its sandy soil and its scrub pines, its homogenous sky arid featureless horizon, it is like a land under a curse."
Mary Flanagan's rendering of this accursed land forms a sturdy foundation of Frances' character and for the novel as a whole. The drudgery and danger of mill work, the power of local priests and local opinion, the ethnic rivalries, the small-town platitudes ("there's nothing like your own little place...no one like your own people") are wonderfully depicted. Frances is surrounded by people who seem to care for her, yet are actually caring for themselves through her, a pattern of abuse that will continue well into adulthood. Before she reaches puberty, her future has been mapped out in accordance with the wishes and narrow ambitions of others: she will lead a life of spinsterish servitude, teaching at the local Catholic school and doing good works.
Trapped in this imposed identity, Frances begins to think of herself as "a performing animal" and "a little American smiler." always eager to please, to bend, to sacrifice. As she comes to understand, she has been "conditioned for servility," so it is natural that, when one of her aunts falls ill, she is thrust into the role of unpaid nurse. Her beloved, indecisive father remarries and fades from the scene. In an attempt to escape the prison being built around her, Frances takes the confirmation name "Rose," as if, by shedding her given name, she will shed as well all of Frances' pain and timidity.
But just at the point where it seems Rose's spirit will be extinguished in this swamp of imposed duties and beliefs, she discovers in herself one spark of will and escapes her provincial prison for New York City. The vehicle for this escape is her first lover, Travis, and this pattern, too., will repeat itself throughout the novel. Just as we are about to lose hope for Rose and she seems about to lose hope for herself, she summons the courage to break free. And in almost every case. the impetus for these flights of liberation is a lover. Rose becomes obsessed with a series of them, surrendering herself in accordance with her conditioning. What she is chasing in each of these men is, of course, her true and unabridged individuality, but it takes her years - and most of the book - to search for it in the proper place.
These love obsessions lead Rose into a bohemian life with a band of filmmakers in New York's Lower East Side, to a Greek island, to Italy and, finally, London. Always, though, the habit formed in small-town Maine haunts her: "Roles and poses: how they stick, stick, stick."
In her travels, Rose attracts a new family of quirky characters, some of them duplicitous, some kind. Flanagan does a good job of capturing the happy poverty of the 1960s, the easy friendships. the spur-of-the-moment trysts and travels, a bit of the dirt and drugs. Here and there, the thoroughness with which she develops minor characters and insignificant events causes the novel to droop for a few pages or so. One or two of the supporting characters seem more like devices than real people, but these are small failings given the size of the cast and the real clarity and depth with which the major characters are presented. And, though none of the later environments quite matches the perfection of Flanagan's provincial Maine, they are all original creations, never clichés, never stale borrowings from someone else's books or travels. Rose's initial, wide-eyed take on Manhattan is especially fine.
The tension in the novel arises directly out of our affection for Rose Mullen. It seems easier for the reader, as well as for Rose's friends and lovers, to appreciate her than for her to appreciate herself. We wait and hope for her to smash the shell of her earlier conditioning and emerge as a true woman, someone capable of staking her rightful claim to a piece of the world's joy. But, self-sacrificial almost to the end, she attaches herself to men who lie to her, leave her, play various mind games with her, to a woman friend who tells her, "You're my creation, cookie," to people who enforce and encourage her servility.
Rose's rationalization for this behavior is: "People who are always good to you don't ever teach you anything," and this is the real lesson of the book, convincingly demonstrated. Flanagan is too mature a writer to spoil her subtle investigation with a pat climax: there is an epiphany, but it is as muted and modest as the Maine landscape. At the end of the story, we are left with a sense of having witnessed another person's inner life - frustrating at times, pitiable, admirable, a bit boring, spotted with pain and joy, but very real.
"Rose Reason" is a courageous book, eschewing as it does most of the tricks of more meretricious, heavily-plotted fiction. Consistently engaging and devoid of bitterness, it asks the reader to forego the titillation of a glamorous plot in exchange for something subtler, more mysterious, and in the end, much more valuable.
At one point in "Rose Reason," Mary Flanagan's third work of fiction (she is the author of "Trust," a novel, and "Bail Girls." a collection of stories), the heroine, Frances (a.k.a. Rose) Mullen, is told: "You are a good listener, Miss Mullen. You have not too strong an identity." This dubious compliment, and Frances' acceptance of it, are two of the many delicate beams of light Flanagan shines into the recesses of her main character's psyche. In fact, the entire novel is not so much a story as a subtle, many-faceted investigation of one woman's inner life. Without relying on a brisk, twisting plot (though there are some nice surprises) or a series of big scenes (though there is an abundance of fine small ones), Flanagan is able to make the reader a full and willing partner in this investigation, and to create, in "Rose Reason," a moving and psychologically precise work.
The book begins with a sweet Maine childhood. Young Frances ice-skates, eats blueberries in milk and maple-sap icicles, listens to her parents dancing and laughing in the den late at night. But this idyllic existence is spoiled, first, glancingly, by the Korean War, and then, more profoundly, by the illness and death of Frances' mother. Her kindly father is easily overpowered by his steel-willed sisters, one of whom takes Frances to live with her in Maine's interior: "a melancholy place ... With its sandy soil and its scrub pines, its homogenous sky arid featureless horizon, it is like a land under a curse."
Mary Flanagan's rendering of this accursed land forms a sturdy foundation of Frances' character and for the novel as a whole. The drudgery and danger of mill work, the power of local priests and local opinion, the ethnic rivalries, the small-town platitudes ("there's nothing like your own little place...no one like your own people") are wonderfully depicted. Frances is surrounded by people who seem to care for her, yet are actually caring for themselves through her, a pattern of abuse that will continue well into adulthood. Before she reaches puberty, her future has been mapped out in accordance with the wishes and narrow ambitions of others: she will lead a life of spinsterish servitude, teaching at the local Catholic school and doing good works.
Trapped in this imposed identity, Frances begins to think of herself as "a performing animal" and "a little American smiler." always eager to please, to bend, to sacrifice. As she comes to understand, she has been "conditioned for servility," so it is natural that, when one of her aunts falls ill, she is thrust into the role of unpaid nurse. Her beloved, indecisive father remarries and fades from the scene. In an attempt to escape the prison being built around her, Frances takes the confirmation name "Rose," as if, by shedding her given name, she will shed as well all of Frances' pain and timidity.
But just at the point where it seems Rose's spirit will be extinguished in this swamp of imposed duties and beliefs, she discovers in herself one spark of will and escapes her provincial prison for New York City. The vehicle for this escape is her first lover, Travis, and this pattern, too., will repeat itself throughout the novel. Just as we are about to lose hope for Rose and she seems about to lose hope for herself, she summons the courage to break free. And in almost every case. the impetus for these flights of liberation is a lover. Rose becomes obsessed with a series of them, surrendering herself in accordance with her conditioning. What she is chasing in each of these men is, of course, her true and unabridged individuality, but it takes her years - and most of the book - to search for it in the proper place.
These love obsessions lead Rose into a bohemian life with a band of filmmakers in New York's Lower East Side, to a Greek island, to Italy and, finally, London. Always, though, the habit formed in small-town Maine haunts her: "Roles and poses: how they stick, stick, stick."
In her travels, Rose attracts a new family of quirky characters, some of them duplicitous, some kind. Flanagan does a good job of capturing the happy poverty of the 1960s, the easy friendships. the spur-of-the-moment trysts and travels, a bit of the dirt and drugs. Here and there, the thoroughness with which she develops minor characters and insignificant events causes the novel to droop for a few pages or so. One or two of the supporting characters seem more like devices than real people, but these are small failings given the size of the cast and the real clarity and depth with which the major characters are presented. And, though none of the later environments quite matches the perfection of Flanagan's provincial Maine, they are all original creations, never clichés, never stale borrowings from someone else's books or travels. Rose's initial, wide-eyed take on Manhattan is especially fine.
The tension in the novel arises directly out of our affection for Rose Mullen. It seems easier for the reader, as well as for Rose's friends and lovers, to appreciate her than for her to appreciate herself. We wait and hope for her to smash the shell of her earlier conditioning and emerge as a true woman, someone capable of staking her rightful claim to a piece of the world's joy. But, self-sacrificial almost to the end, she attaches herself to men who lie to her, leave her, play various mind games with her, to a woman friend who tells her, "You're my creation, cookie," to people who enforce and encourage her servility.
Rose's rationalization for this behavior is: "People who are always good to you don't ever teach you anything," and this is the real lesson of the book, convincingly demonstrated. Flanagan is too mature a writer to spoil her subtle investigation with a pat climax: there is an epiphany, but it is as muted and modest as the Maine landscape. At the end of the story, we are left with a sense of having witnessed another person's inner life - frustrating at times, pitiable, admirable, a bit boring, spotted with pain and joy, but very real.
"Rose Reason" is a courageous book, eschewing as it does most of the tricks of more meretricious, heavily-plotted fiction. Consistently engaging and devoid of bitterness, it asks the reader to forego the titillation of a glamorous plot in exchange for something subtler, more mysterious, and in the end, much more valuable.
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