Apples on the Flood (review)

Book Reviews Cunningham, Rodger, Apples on the Flood. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987. 214 pp. Apples on the Flood, a nonfiction study ofAppalachiancharacter, has been highly recommendedby allofitsearlyreviewers. I join the others in their praise of this provocative and scholarly work. Itwill be difficult to do Appalachian studies in the future withoutreference to Cunningham's analysis ofthe antecedents to whathecalls die "Southern mountain experience." That experience Cunningham finds rooted in certain events which occurred in the Scottish border areas during the Middle Ages. People who lived in that region were marginal to both the Celtic culture of the Scottish Highlands and the mainstream European culture of the invading English. Because these Lowland Scots became Anglicized, but were never fully accepted by the British, Cunningham believes uiey became "infantilized." That is, they were denied psychic maturity by theirconquerors atthe sametimethatthey were so desperately copying English speech and material culture. When die English used these Lowland Scots as their advance troops in subjugating the rest of the British Isles, the latter turned on their fellow Celts with even more vehemence than they might otherwise have displayed. Indoingso,theydemonstratedthewisdom in Simone Weil's assertion that "Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others." Descendants of these Lowland Scots found tiiemselves first in Ulster and then later in Southern Appalachia. In both of theseplaces conditions were the same: the new settlers wereon theouterperiphery of an advancing culture which used them while atthe same time itdeniedthem fully adultstatus. So, argues Cunningham, does itstill. AppalachiaandAppalachianshave never been accorded equal status with the restofthe country. The mountains are still on the fringe, to be colonized by mining companies or resort developers in the same way that all Third World territories are to be colonized. Those who do Society'sdirtyworkin themountains, like their Scotch-Irish forebears, are to be patronized, disparaged as "savage," and never fully accepted by the cultural mainstream . In developing his arguments in support ofall ofthis, Cunningham has made a fascinatingcontributiontoAppalachian studies . He has done us all a service by developing the idea ofperipheral culture, explaining the so-called pathological" natureofthepersonalitieswhoinhabitthat culture, and showing that pathology rooted in the larger pathology ofthe colonizing power. Since representatives of that colonizing power have been the very ones to do most of the writing about Appalachia , I think Cunningham has forced us all to do a lot of rereading, just to see how much previous scholarship has been shapedbytheunconsciouspreconceptions of the larger society. In this sense, Cunningham supplements, and updates, arguments brought forward by such modern writers as Henry D. Shapiro, in his Appalachia on Our Mind. I believe, therefore , that Apples on the Flood belongs in the library of anyone who is serious about knowing about this region. Having said that, however, let me interject some qualifiers. First, I have a problem with structure. After a wonderful start,the bookbogs downinitslatterpages and comes almost to a complete halt, I 63 believe, toward the very end. Partly, this is because Cunningham has written really only one halfofhis sales pitch. The form of that familiar genre, you will recall, begins with catching attention and focusing it on a serious, inherent problem. The author certainly does this. But then the sales pitch provides a solution, visualizes theresultsofadoptingthatsolution,andissues adefinite call to action. Like so many writers about Appalachia, Cunninghamis very perceptive in identifying a problem; he is not so good at providing a solution. Not that he does not try-his last chapter, in fact, is a description of that solution. Unfortunately, the solution is in the form of myth. Cunningham argues that recourse to myth is necessary to explain himself at this juncture and that "analytic tools" just are not appropriate in describing the future. Strange thathe shouldthink so, sinceitisthevery strengthofhis logical analysis that has made so valuable his description of the past. Also, since myth means something different to everyone whoreads it, thebookmustnecessarily go out of focus at that very place where Cunningham ought to be most clear. I also have a problem with vocabulary. Rodger Cunningham is obviously in love with words. But I wonder sometimes ifhis love of words gets between him and the reader. It did for me. At times lucid and Eenetrating, at other...