- Paperback: 228 pages
- Publisher: The Women's Press Ltd (Jun 1 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 070434694X
- ISBN-13: 978-0704346949
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.4 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 141 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"A fine, taut novel ... A lean book that goes down like water ... Remarkable." -- New York Times Book Review
"An extraordinarily fine novel ... written in a clear, almost incandescent prose that sings and sears." -- Black Scholar --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
"An extraordinarily fine novel ... written in a clear, almost incandescent prose that sings and sears." -- Black Scholar --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
Meridian Hill has been pregnant, married and separated all by the time she is 17. After seeing the violence against young Civil Rights workers, on the news, she decides to leave her child behind and head for the Deep South and become involved in her peoples struggle for rights.
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First Sentence
Truman Held drove slowly into the small town of Chicokema as the two black men who worked at the station where he stopped for gas were breaking for lunch. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Truman Held drove slowly into the small town of Chicokema as the two black men who worked at the station where he stopped for gas were breaking for lunch. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Under the microscope,
By Jess D. (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Meridian (Paperback)
Much as I've enjoyed Walker's more well-known novels, I'm afraid that this one failed to move me. The main problem was that I always felt at least one level of remove from the characters. The reader is informed that such-and-such behaves in a certain way in order to elicit a particular reaction, or because of some or other damaging past experience, but we are never allowed to feel any of the characters' emotions or see them as real people. At one point in the novel, we are informed that Truman thinks that Meridian's problem is her habit of over-analysis (not, frustratingly, through dialogue, but through narration), and Walker could certainly have taken that advice to heart. The book read at times like a lyrical essay.Having finished the book, I know little about the character Meridian other than that Alice Walker worships her and that she suffered through many terrible experiences. The two main female characters seem to have so many horrific problems thrown their way that they become martyrs. Far from empowering these women, Walker has defined them only by their suffering and their mysterious paralytic illnesses; I may as well have been reading a Victorian melodrama. Toward the end, a few passages shone with the kind of honesty and beauty that I had expected from this book, and I was at last allowed glimpses of the characters' inner lives rather than being told what their motivations were - but at that point it was more frustrating than inspiring, because it teased me with what might have been.
5.0 out of 5 stars
DEEP!!,
By Dream in Color (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Meridian (Mass Market Paperback)
This book was so lyrical,and so profound... I had to read it twice! You know how you read something and when you're done you just think "WOW!" Yeah, well this is like that. It can be difficult sometimes, but everything she talked about, growing up and coming of age in the civil rights era, interracial dating, it was all handled with depth and care. You'll really feel for the characters when you read this book. Beautiful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A triumph for the opressed, and for humans everywhere.,
By Lilliana Meredith (New Hartford, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Meridian (Mass Market Paperback)
Alice Walker's book Meridian is a passionate, touching book, in a variety of ways. First of all, it depicts the warped minds and hearts of blacks (and non-racist whites) living in the South in the 1960s. Meridian is a young black woman- who is slightly crazy, yet completely involving and entertaining. Meridian is very different from other people- she feels things more acutely, sensitively, and strongly than other people. Her emotions- anger, hate, pain, suffering, are all depicted with startling clarity. Ths book is in some ways like a poem- and is very different from any other book I've ever read- almost as if the story is a series of dream sequences. Meridian, who is a civil rights worker, is deeply afraid that her people, and race, will dehumanize themselves and lose their souls. I disagree with a reviewer who gave it one star, and critized it for having no ''rising action''. The book has rising action, conflict, and literary techniques, they are just related in a different way- this book does not havea standard chapter form- instead it is a book based entirely on emotions, told in three parts, by Meridian, her black on-and-off boyfriend Truman Held, and her white Northern best friend Lynne. The books clearly conveys that all three of these people have parts of themselves missing- bits of humanity that have been desensitized in the civil rights struggle- and the hate passed from whites to blacks. All of these people are shown as simple young adults- none of them entirely evil, or entirely good, simply trying to survive in this tumultous era. The ending is bittersweet, not entirely happy, but not hopeless either. This book is more about a journey of human beings- than anythng else. It focuses more on characterization than plot- the events seem to be less important than the feelings, thoughts and passions of Meridian, Lynne, and Truman. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about the worries, cares, and journey of the soul.
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