Meridian

by Alice Walker

Book Overview

For the Millions of Readers who loved The Color Purple, Alice Walker's award-winning novel, Meridian is a poignant and powerful story of the American South in the 1960s and of one woman who risks her life for the people she loves. Meridian Hill, a courageous young activist, creates peace and understanding by dedicating herself heart and soul to her civil rights work, touching the lives of all those she meets even when her health begins to deteriorate...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671472569
• ISBN13: 9780671472566
• Release Date: June 1977
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Confused and Angry

I have great respect for this author but this one is disappointing to me. She covered so many subjects but she never spent enough time on any of them to give enough clout. I am so confused because in the beginning, I was led to believe that Meridian was white only in the last part of the novel, she turns out to be black. Meridian was too complex for me and I never understood her and her goals. Truman was an "Uncle Tom" masquerading just to sleep with white women. Lynne, his wife soon discovers that she is not the choice of the day and a sad distraction. I never understood how or why the daughter died. This book lacked any order. The story starts somewhere in the middle and the last 50 pages or so just drag from one subject to the one. You can't tell where they are in the South and the snippets from this visit is as silly as a soup sandwich. Reading this was like dealing with a Bipolar person (you never know what you are getting from day to day ) and this case, page by page. I had high hopes for this book but I was left with broken debts.

Read into it

This is one of the best books I've ever read. I love Alice Walker. Meridian is a book that changed my life. Meridian, the main character, is a woman who feels so deeply and wants so badly to help other people that this feeling comes close to destroying her. Any woman who has ever cared about a cause so much that she felt she'd give her last breath if it would help will understand this book. Meridian is not judged for her depth of emotion, but the other characters often don't understand. She's not crazy - she's overwhelmed by racism and hurt and can't understand how anyone would be able to hurt anyone else. She is never jaded, never bitter, but always trying to find a way to make her life meaningful. It's a bit slowgoing if you read it just for the story, but if you can get to the point, you'll want to read it again and again.

DEEP!!

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

A triumph for the opressed, and for humans everywhere.

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.

This was an intense, thought-provoking novel.

Walker gives a personal, human side to the Civil Rights activism of the 1960's. Her tales are ones only a participant of the period could relate, and she speaks to a wider audience than just women or African Americans. It delves beyond black and white tv footage of Dr. King and SNCC leaders and let's the readers see inside the minds of those "living" in that period.