Winthropologist

THE WINTHROP WOMAN (586 pp.)--Anya Seton--Houghfon Mifflin ($4.95).

There are those who like history and those who like novels; both classes of readers are apt to be depressed by historical novels. This form of literature, which requires a strict convention of disbelief, is perfectly exemplified in The Winthrop Woman, a bulging package of period color, religion, sex, sadism and witchcraft. It is written in what can only be called Williamsburg prose--the settings and costumes are as authentic as money and research can buy, and if the hands and heads that stick through the quaint old collars and cuffs are stuffed with straw, there will be no complaints from the fans of fancy-dress fiction. Novelist Seton (Dragonwyck, Katherine) moves among the historic exhibits with the assurance of an attendant waving a feather duster.

The chief exhibit is Elizabeth Fones, who marries her cousin, Henry Winthrop. Henry is a bad hat who gives her a bad time, and her lot is further aggravated by the fact that her wicked uncle, Governor John Winthrop, seems determined to run the Massachusetts Bay colony without her advice. Of course, "a provoking lass she was, [with her] hair black as a wicked Spaniard's. There was a bursting carnal femaleness about her . . ." At this point, the reader will suspect that he is in for a slalom round every four-poster bed that can be worked into the narrative. Not so: no hussy she. Elizabeth represents a thoroughly modern, interfaith point of view among the heretic-hunting Puritans; and among the schismatics of prerevolutionary New England, she is the spirit of togetherness, a one-woman P.T.A. opposed to discrimination against Indians, be they Siwanoy, NarraganSett, or any other friendly neighborhood group.

Nonaddicts of historical fiction who may encounter The Winthrop Woman will probably experience the half-foolish, half-public-spirited emotions of citizens who have been cajoled into playing a part in some commemorative pageant: there is a good deal of history around, but somehow it seems to have got lost amid the fuss, feathers and false whiskers.

In the dialogue there are enough "prithees," "goodwives," and "forsooths" to clog the collective gullet of The Lambs' club. As for the problem of delineating character, it is solved simply. Characters express emotion by changing color--from pink to grey, scarlet, dull red and "glistening" chalk white, until the fascinated reader feels like the chameleon, which is said to become a nervous wreck when nudged across a plaid bedspread.

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