INSIDE HELEN KELLER; BIOGRAPHER SEES THE WONDER, BUT NOT ALL THE IMPLICATIONS OF DEAF-BLIND WOMAN'S STRUGGLE.

Byline: Scott Holleran Special to the Daily News

``Helen Keller: A Life''

by Dorothy Herrmann

(394 pages, Knopf; $30)

Our rating: Two and one half stars

Any serious biography of Helen Keller must account for her status as a primarily ``intellectual'' heroine whose triumphs stem from her extraordinary development. Dorothy Herrmann, who wrote ``Anne Morrow Lindbergh,'' attempts to examine Annie Sullivan's most famous pupil.

Keller, blinded during infancy and ``possessing neither bone nor air conduction in either ear,'' is fascinating. Though her mother often wished the child dead, according to Herrmann, Keller became a writer and lecturer; impressed Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain and several presidents;and became the subject of William Gibson's classic stage drama, ``The Miracle Worker.''

Herrmann's most captivating moments lie in the earliest chapters. Annie Sullivan's creation of a ruthlessly rational educational method for her wild young student, using lessons from her own traumatic childhood, is truly exceptional. Herrmann writes with intense clarity about the woman Helen Keller would lovingly call Teacher for the rest of her days. The story of their meeting, in 1887, is told through a spellbinding series of Sullivan's correspondence.

Sullivan taught Keller to think in concepts. ``It now remains my pleasant task,'' Sullivan wrote, ``to direct and mold the beautiful intelligence that is beginning to stir in the child-soul.'' Many lessons were conducted outdoors - ``Our happiest school-room was the roadside or a field or beside the Tennessee River'' - giving Keller the feeling that the world and its secrets were hers to master. The letters permit the reader to witness Sullivan's philosophy of education in action, culminating in the girl's breakthrough to reality.

Teacher's perspective

Keller learned to speak, mastered French without a textbook or a Braille dictionary and graduated from Radcliffe. But, even as her student became famous, Sullivan remained objective: ``Helen Keller is neither a `phenomenal child,' `an intellectual prodigy,' nor an `extraordinary genius' but simply a very bright and lovely child, unmarred by self consciousness or any taint of evil. Every thought mirrored on her beautiful face, beaming with intelligence and affection, is a fresh joy, and this workaday world seems fairer and brighter because she is in it.''

As neurology professor Frederick Tilney wrote, Sullivan's methods are the core of Keller's story: ``From the very beginning of her instruction, this ingenious teacher has arranged every experience so that it might have real pedagogic value, whether in play, in work or in rest, as well as in all other social activities. Helen Keller has been taught to capitalize every opportunity for learning from each impression entering her sensorium.''

As a result, Keller could distinguish between roses and wildflowers, and she knew when storms were coming, detecting ``a concentration in my nostrils.'' The efficacy of her mind was matched only by her charm. An admirer observed: ``Ask her the color of your coat, she will feel it and say `black.' If it happens to be blue, and you tell her so triumphantly, she is likely to answer, `Thank you. I am glad you know. Why did you ask me?' ''

Later, when exposed to the emergent ideas of the late 19th century, Keller's advocacy of socialism grew; ceasing to see herself as an individual, she began to view herself as part of a collective, repeating the bromides of a new era, telling one audience that a socialist is ``one who tries to abolish everything his neighbor enjoys.''

Raising consciousness

It becomes clear, as Herrmann covers Keller's later years, that she does not fully grasp the nature of the Alabaman's wonder; Herrmann struggles, for instance, to point out that Keller used her brain before the arrival of Annie Sullivan, missing the central idea that young Helen Keller was not fully conscious of her own existence. As Keller put it: ``Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am.''

Yearning to fully account for Keller's miracle, the reader gets the sense that her life is much more enriching than is conveyed here. Though Herrmann offers glimpses, Keller (and Sullivan) remain elusive. Did the charming blind and deaf heroine desire and pursue romantic love? Herrmann's chapter on Keller's suitor Peter Fagan offers ambiguous answers. The author's claim that Keller was perpetually on the brink of financial ruin is contradicted by Keller's fur coats, servants and countless visits abroad. Herrmann's failure to understand the principles of Keller's success robs her otherwise worthwhile biography of a crucial theme - Helen Keller's intellectual progression. The result is a fine account of Helen Keller's life minus an exploration of its truth.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) As chronicled in a new biography, the life of Helen Keller, left, began to be filled with possibilities after she met Annie Sullivan, the woman she called Teacher.

(2) no caption (Dorothy Herrmann)