Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, July 24, 1976 Paae Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, July 24, 1976 Dixie whistles the 'New Cholson-'My forefathers were here' By PHIILIP BOKOVOY 1HRTE IS A NEW Reconstruction oc- curing in the South, more pervasive than the one of the last century, It is a reconstriction of the social attitudes within the existing hierarchy, and it is being brought about by a new economic prosperity that sweeps from Richmond to Houston. Nowhere is this more apparent to the visitor than in the "Deep South" - places like Mississippi and western Tennessee, where low tax rates and the warm cli- mate have attracted a phenomenal amount of new industry - industry most southern communities have welcomed with open arms, despite the threat it poses to their tradition-laden world. There, young people have brought back to their hometowns a new tolerance for diversity, gained in col- lege and the cities where they have worked. Yet travelling from Memphis, south along the fertile valley of the Mississippi River where cotton is still king, one senses that if Margaret Mitchell could visit today, she would still meet many characters that would have felt comfortable in her book, Gone With the Wind. There are plenty of Scarletts here and the Rhetts are just as numerous. Black share-cropper farmstand stately old antelbellum plantation homes remain, haunting the countryside with spirits of another age. Their residents are often publicity shy. Many don't want to talk to reporters, and brush one off - though more politely than their northern counterparts. The locals call it the Delta region-an stately old ante-bellum plantation homes are which they say includes much more than New Orleans and its environs. Ac- cording to legend and lore, the Delta stretches from the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, ((an old hotel that catered to the rich planters when they came to town on business), to Vicksburg, Mississippi. T IS ALSO THE SETTING of Bobbie Gen- try's "Ode to Billy Joe," and its movie adaptation. The film crews had only been gone for several months when I went through there this summer; but the older folks, sitting out on their front porches in the hot muggy weather, still boasted about their bit parts in the movie. For many of them, who had never been to a city lar- ger than Clarksdale or Greenwood, "Ode to Billy Joe" was the biggest thing to hit their small world in years. And though proud, they were content with that brief stardom the movie them. But to the younger people, in the s towns and budding cities that dot he neither "Ode to Billy Joe" nor the style it describes is enough to su:ify longing for a wider world. And anon1 seems a small price to pay for the ises of prosperity and excitement ti crowded metropolis holds out to bet 'Those who go to college find to come back to their h;rnemts school breaks for the summer. ones who stay at homne to k - someplace, anyptace where ti pen. " WOULD RATHER move aw:y the people here aren't a;y l plained one young woman in 'they life in her Mississippi hometowsit, don't go out at night. They iest dleet The Saturdal Magazir to do anything." Some of those who move away after a while, disillusioned by the lems of city life. But their sojourn into the city an indelible stamp on them, they back home a new insight into the lems of their small communities. Henry Fort Gholson Jr. and his Debbie, are young professionals who up in a small country town-Holly Sp Mississippi, about sixty miles from phis. Fort's family has raised its offs there for five generations now, bu years ago he and his wife decided would move to Memphis because they tired of the insular atmosphere of Springs. FOR DEBBIE it 'was easier - her I has been in town for quite a Sullivan-We just ignore them' .. ... ... . .. .. . .., .. .. .. .. .. ,.see..s's... .... ..... - "-O -.u" rr5 , 55. " .:: . C...~ r. -"; JG ' ' ......... ... . , ......... .. .... :. , r . ... r .. . J r . W. A L KE... " R5" {:' ..~ ..d i' .rJ Y'ME ID IA N ' : . R a c ism 's... ... . ..r .. ..J . . ... . . p ro p e n sity,. . .. ".. sJ fo r sS~ :.r t}r,,!J' "$ : ,y . ..fY".Y".., T., f I -. ., . .. ...... . . : ". .." ..:... ..t t :: 4 '.r . { J. . r .;Y !. L .'" L Lf . .: . ,Jr... ., 1L:{ h.... MERIDIAN, a novel by Alice Walker. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York and London. 228 pp., $7.95. By JEFFREY SELBST HERE NEVER was a novel before, I'm sure, that was so obviously a product of the crossbreeding of several trends as Meridian. What is unusual is that this novel, a cross between black literature, "emerging woman" literature, "emerging black wo- man" literature, and plain ol' stream-of-consciousness, clearly benefits from its legacy in every respect. Meridian is not a great novel. It is, however, a fine attempt at a story that raises some frightening and ultimately disquieting questions. First, what annoyed me: the book's plot and its main character, Meridian Hill, were plainly stamped from a mold, the same mold used extensively by Sue Kaufman, Erica Jong, Lisa Alther (in her recent Kinflicks), and to a small extent, Gayl Jones (of Corregidora and Eva's Man fame). The annoyance becomes intense when you realize just what author Alice Walker has taken from each: Lynne Rabinowitz, Walker's prototypical white liberal Jewish girl, comes straight from Kaufman; the monstrous, frigid mother could come from Jong's Fear of Flying (a trashy book because of its reliance on types) or Alther's poignant Kinflicks; and Meridian herself might have emerged from the pages of Corregidora. But that last has got to be wrong, for the same reason that makes this such an affecting book, the same reason that makes Jones' Corregidora such a brilliant work, and the reason that Meridian makes it as fiction. IT IS WRONG to say that Meridian is Walker's Ursa Corregidora -what is proper to say is that both women stem from the same source. And the reason is the experience of black womanhood itself, which from reading these books alone would seem to be more of a universal experience than, say, its white equivalent. Meridian Hill is a southern black woman, and the novel deals with the years of her life between the end of high school (and her brief marriage), and her involvement ment, with Truman Held (a black Ci his white wife, Lynne Rabinowitz. The uniqueness of this story lies its main character (forgive me, but just about the last word on that subjt subject too long glossed over by blac hate which threatens to cripple Pr self-hate not unique to blacks. As she describes how the Movel to rage and racism, it is shown how ing to actually hate his naive, trusti5 her very whiteness, More thanitat blame her, for all the iniquities P'5 white, and that is unforgivable. 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