TABLE TALK

An American Attica

DENIS BROGAN

It is with great distress that I find myself charged by a Mr R. Emmett TyreII (Letters,

28 February) with making snide remarks in

this column about his home state of Indiana; For Indiana is one of my favourite states.

It is true that there is a faintly comic air about it, rather as there is about Bootle or Wigan, but this comic reputation is entirely unjustified. Indiana is one of the most interesting of Middle Western states, and it is very representative of some of the most attractive aspects of the Middle West. Its inhabitants are called Hoosiers, a word whose origin seems to be obscure. But what marks off Indiana from its neighbouring states, even the rich and pleasant state of Iowa, is the literary passions of its inhabi- tants. No Boeotia is Indiana: it is rather the nearest equivalent the Middle West has to Attica. For reasons that no one can ex- plain, the Hoosiers are passionately devoted to writing. If you walk down a main street of Indianapolis, the state capital, the first person you meet is as likely as not to be busy writing the great American novel or the great American poem.

My knowledge of Indiana is very largely based on the novels of Booth Tarkington. He was not the most famous novelist pro- duced or celebrated by Indiana: the most famous is undoubtedly Theodore Dreiser, though whether he is a better novelist than Booth Tarkington I very much doubt. But the state is not only rich in men and women of letters; it is a very attractive state physically—not perhaps as attractive as its neighbour Iowa, but very attractive all the same; although I cannot accept the view that Indiana is the most perfectly farmed state in the Union. After all, I know at first hand both East Anglia and East Lothian and I have lived in Iowa. However, a great deal of the landscape of Indiana is pleasing, which perhaps accounts for its interesting school of landscape painting which you can study in the art department of Ball College in Muncie (now better known as Middletown).

I think my affection for Indiana is partly owed to the illustrations in some magazine my father subscribed to—was it the Centuty or Munsey's?—which showed Indiana- apolis in a very agreeable light, although not totally truthfully. But by reading the Tark- ington stories I got to know a good deal about such specimens of Hoosier bour- geoisie as the Ambersons and the Sheridans.

That I should make snide remarks about a state like this, which in addition to its many other merits had for a long time the only important publishing company in the Middle West, Bobbs-Merrill, is very dis- tressing. But, to be frank, my liking for Indianapolis is partly like the liking of King Auberon Quinn in The Napoleon of Nott- ing Hill for 'rich badness' in 'the literary works he reviewed. For central Indian- apolis is a collection of architectural oddi- ties which beats even Newark, New Jersey.

There is, for example, a building which looks like a Mexican Leo an. I rather think it is the headquarters of the American Legion. There are many other miscarriages of architectural genius.

There is an imitation of the Column of July, and various other buildings which re-

call some of the more deplorable achieve- ments of the reign of Louis-Philippe. I was horrified to learn on my last visit to Indian- apolis that this treasure house was threat- ened with urban renewal and with the removal of the rich badness which pleased me so much in the long distant past.

I have to confess that I have never seen the great motor race which is one of the most serious claims of Indianapolis to American attention, equivalent to the Drake Relays in Des Moines. The state university at Bloomington is famous (or notorious) for its great collection of materials accu- mulated for Dr Kinsey's celebrated report on the human male. A sardonic female friend of mine commented on the claims made for this collection by saying that the report did not deal with the human male, but with the American male—a very differ- ent thing.

Indiana has had for a long time past the reputation of having a peculiarly rich poli- tical life. Some of its products have not been uniformly edifying. For example, I know who Tom Taggart was, and where French Lick is. This should reassure Mr Tyrrell that I know something of his state at first hand. I have even heard the famous Senator Hickenlooper address the assembled Repub- licans of Indianapolis in its chief hotel: that was quite an experience. Indiana, it may be said, was the last great stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan in the North. As the head- quarters of the American Legion, it natur- ally produced a great many politicians such as Mr McNutt who was proudly claimed as 'tall, tanned, and terrific'.

Indeed, I can claim even more knowledge of Indiana than Mr Tyrrell allows for since I was taken by a professor of Purdue Uni- versity to the banks of the Wabash and shown lights (not candles, it is true) gleam- ing through the sycamores as they did in the famous song; shown also the house which my host assured me was originally the sorority house of the sweetheart of Sigma Chi. Indeed, one of the claims of Indiana to respect is that it has the only American equivalent I know of 'Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon', owing to the joint effort of the two Dreiser brothers. Theodore and Paul (who changed his name from Dreiser to Dresser). But I was given the proper attitude of Indiana by a Hoosiere who said that Indiana was the real gate- way to the Middle West. I asked her what she meant. She said, 'That's where people begin to call the gardener the yardman. and my home town is the representative city of the Middle West'. Her home town, may say, was Terre Haute, pronounced roughly Terry Hut.

No, I have not betrayed the readers of this journal by pretending to a knowledge of Indiana which I have not got. Indeed, I am prepared to reverse the charges. Does Mr Tyrrell know the popular song of the 'twenties, 'She's a corn-fed Indiana girl, but she's Mama to me'? I cannot bring myself to quote the full text since it contains the very snide lines, She was born, bred, raised among the Hicks. But she's my bride-to-be'. I can sing this and may descend on Bloom- ington to do so if Mr Tyrrell doesn't reverse his charges.