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Gone with the Wind

Margaret Mitchell

Why we're reading this: I've wanted to read it forever pretty much since I was a little girl, but never did. I think that it is t…more
[close] I've wanted to read it forever pretty much since I was a little girl, but never did. I think that it is time.

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Jul 03, 2010 Anne (Booklady) Molinarolo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, anne-booklady-2017, permanent-library, favorites, summer-2017, anne-booklady-500-page-books, great-literary-fiction, summer-2012

August 2017

Review I wrote in the Summer of 2012 still holds true.

10 Stars!!!!

I remember going to the old Orpheum Theater with my mother and my best friend to see “Gone With the Wind” ’in the summer of 1969. I was so excited to see my first grown up film. I can see the maroon curtains unveiling the movie screen as the lights dimmed. Not a sound could be heard, but the opening strains of music and there was Tara! I was smitten. Laura and I sat through the second showing too. Exhausted, but roil August 2017

Review I wrote in the Summer of 2012 still holds true.

10 Stars!!!!

I remember going to the old Orpheum Theater with my mother and my best friend to see “Gone With the Wind” ’in the summer of 1969. I was so excited to see my first grown up film. I can see the maroon curtains unveiling the movie screen as the lights dimmed. Not a sound could be heard, but the opening strains of music and there was Tara! I was smitten. Laura and I sat through the second showing too. Exhausted, but roiled up was I when I got home. On my lonely supper plate laid my very first copy of Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND! Needless to say, I wolfed down supper and went to my room and began reading the book that I’ve had a love affair with since that summer day.

With each reading I notice something I’ve missed in prior readings. I still find Slavery to be the abomination as it has always been. And it must have been harder to read about a mere 75 years after the end of the Civil War in 1936 when GONE WITH THE WIND was first published. I’m not surprised that this epic historical novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Mitchell has created a multitude cast of characters, giving each their own distinct voice. The reader can tell the difference between Pork, Mammy, Prissy, and Uncle Peter and that is credit to Mitchell. But even minor characters sound different. Tara, Twelve Oaks, and Atlanta also become fascinating characters too. As Tara represents the ability to change as the new South rises in defeat of its old genteel feudal life style where every man, women, and child are free to live as they want. Twelve Oaks reflects the Old South that is forever torn asunder. It is Ashley’s South. He doesn’t fit in with the change. He and Melanie are perfect for each other. She understands him and the dream that was the Old South.

Rhett Butler hates that Old South because it tossed him out and turned its back on him. His bitterness fuels his pleasure as he sees its demise as Atlanta burns and his pockets are full of Gold. He is the most transformed character in GONE WITH THE WIND. I’d never observed his transformation as I did in this reading. No wonder the 35 year old fell for the fiery self willed 16 year old Scarlett O’Hara. Not only is she spirited, she possess a dogged determination of those who seem to get their way most of the time. It is Scarlett whom Aunt Pitty and Melanie feel safe in the absence of a man in their Atlanta household. It is Scarlett who makes sure her kith and kin are safe, housed, and fed. She tells us that she’ll never be hungry again no matter if she has to cheat, steal, or commit murder. So it’s no surprise that she marries for convenience after she had married to make Ashley miserable and silence wagging tongues at Twelve Oaks. I felt sorry for her boys; she really was a mother only to her precious Bonnie. And how on Earth could she have loved a wuss like Ashley Wilkes when she had a grown man who loved her? I’d like to think that Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler got her man back after she returns to Tara. The land always gives her strength and regenerates her spirits. But I wonder if she realized too late that she loved Rhett and really belonged with him? Well after all, tomorrow is another day. ...more

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Jul 21, 2024 Jamie rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

So this was surprising different from the movie in many ways. Sure we see her previous marriages but the dynamics with each on, along with Rhett, are different. How she handles the mill, manipulates Ashley to the point of breaking him is so much more pronounced. Her relationships and dislike toward women is also something else. She has such a nasty, whiny attitude! But the biggest difference were the 2 other children she bore, never mentioned in the movie! Interesting story and a curious histori ...more

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