Rating: 
Summary: ENJOYABLE, BUT TOO BRIEF
Review: The author could have added another couple of hundred pages. I enjoyed what I read, but I also agree this is not parody nor is it a masterpiece. I saw the author in person. Not only does she have an ego as large as Tara, she was way too serious over a fictional account of the old south. I enjoyed Gone With the Wind for what it was: a sprawling love story about a witch named Scarlet who eventually did get her comeuppance. ROOTS told the whole truth about what slavery really was like. Enough already.
Rating: 
Summary: I read it, but I didn't enjoy it
Review: And it had nothing to do with being a diehard fan of Margaret Mitchell. In fact, I've never read Gone with the Wind and barely sat through the movie.
Maybe that's why I didn't like it. I didn't always understand the character references or recognize events referenced. Still, that was not why I didn't like it.
I didn't like it because it hopped back and forth to different historical points without giving me a sense of why. Perhaps the author was *too* successful in portraiting the jumble of Cynara's thoughts. Had her story been told in a narrative format, perhaps my reaction would be different.
Rating: 
Summary: A shift in the wind
Review: The Wind Done Gone, while not really a paradoy, is a great read and a book that needed to be written. It's time someone contradicted the sentimental pap of Gone With the Wind with a little truth. It's time we took a real look at strong black characters who survived slavery. It's time we saw enslaved people as complex human beings. I read the whole novel in one sitting. There is a sense of humor in this novel and it does make a laughing stock of Mitchell's characters, but it is thankfully not a minstrel show, which is what many of the current reviewers seem to think it should have been.
Rating: 
Summary: Visit the Library!
Review: A disappointment. If you must read - check it out from the library - save your money. A collector item? I don't think so and the Mitchell's should be ashamed - it certainly isn't worth a fight - however, I'm happy that it has given some fame and wealth to an African American woman. I do trust though that Ms. Mitchell will find a new career. The book is not worth the paper it's written on.
Rating:
Summary: The Wind Done Broke
Review: I've read only seventy pages - about half - of this book, so be forewarned. So far, however, what a disappointment! Forget "parody." This is a humorless, introspective "diary" in the voice of a privileged young woman of our day dressed up as a 19th century mullato mistress, trying in vain to imagine how hard it was. Perhaps for reasons of copyright infringement, Rhett Butler is called "R." and Scarlett is "Other." Mammy is "Mammy," Scarlett's father is "Planter." If the book has a plot, it has yet to emerge. The characters other than Cynara, or Cinnamon, are one-dimensional, and even she is languid, passive, only half-awake. Scarlett, her half sister, was in HER book at least an energetic character, if not a particularly likable one. Cynara is as limp as wilted lettuce. The point? I have no idea. GONE WITH THE WIND is more feminist than THE WIND DONE GONE. Margaret Walker's 1968 novel, JUBILEE, also written as a reply to the moonbeams and magnolia mythology of Margaret Mitchell, is better by several orders of magnitude. Give yourself a treat and read it, or Harriett Jacob's non-fiction memoir, INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL.
Rating:
Summary: Unauthorized Parody? More like a wholesale rip-off
Review: I must confess that I am an avid fan of Gone With the Wind. However, I began reading this parody with an open mind. I am the first to admit that GWTW presents a romanticized view of the Old South, and I was looking forward to a novel that would show the other side of the coin. I thought I would find a novel that showed me how the slaves felt in contrast to the idealized notions of Confederates. Instead, what I found was a tabloid, highly ridiculous work. If Alice Randall has something political to say about the Old South, or Gone With the Wind (and no doubt she has valid foundations) then she should say it. She should say it clearly and openly instead of resorting to mud slinging with this trashy rendition of another very well written, if one-sided, novel. What she has written is not thought provoking, it is spiteful, soap opera silliness. Her style is wonderful, and I have no doubt that should she set her mind to it she could amaze and inspire us with her writing. I hope that she will do so in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant!!
Review: Alice Randall's "The Wind Done Gone" delightfully intertwines past fiction and present fiction and debunks the myths about Southern living for Black Americans during Reconstruction.
Rating:
Summary: LITERARY TITANS CREATE ENVISIONED REALITIES
Review: Gone With The Wind/The Wind Done Gone, two writers, two visions, two purposes. Margaret Mitchell writes a compelling view of fiction in 1936 (less than 100 years after centuries of bondage) when African Americans were denied normal human dignity, human rights and decent education. Alice Randall, educated at Harvard, argues that there is a side to this envisioned reality that is rarely seen or considered and certainly not understood. She tells how it could have been for the others, the ones who Mitchell hardly develops? Well, no. Mitchell develops these characters. Mitchell's work is highly developed; clarity is very apparent. BUT THERE WAS ANOTHER GENUINE TRUTH . . .and that was as black people saw them. And basically, (some) black people quietly saw themselves nearly as Randall proposes--as being powerful people having some control. So Randall's propositions are as clear as Mitchell's. Randall gives slave characters presence of mind, intelligence, and pokes hefty fun at the power of the invisibility of African Americans. She makes an intellectual "inference" from the "facts" of Mitchell's novel. She uses her intelligence to reshape the context of this American mythology. But Randall so busily does that until she wavers on the development of her characterizations. She makes such a big deal of Cynara's beauty. She argues too long, I think, for Cynara's credibility. But maybe she had to. Maybe she hit this myth where it was most penetrable for white sentimentalities --physical beauty. Cynara, a mulatto, is sure that she is more beautiful and exotic than her questionably all-white sibling. I so loved the intelligence in this novel though I didn't love the use of language. The language was like buttermilk instead of cream. The characters were shadowy and underdeveloped but I certainly know from whence Randall got their souls. When you watch the movie GWTW Randall's depiction of power, in her "slave" characters, is somewhat apparent. Rhett told Scarlett, "She's one woman whose respect I want." He was talking about Mammy. I wanted more of Garlic and Mammy's doings. I wanted more revelations from them about what they did while structuring things under their control. I could have had much less of Cynara. I was left with the perplexing thought from Cynara that her sister was her only lasting, longing love. THANKS, for your attention.
Rating:
Summary: NOT A PARODY
Review: Ms. Randall doesn't seem to understand the term parody. This work is anything but a parody. It may be an attempt at criticism. Imagine Roots being written, seriously, from the point of view of the overseer or slave-ship captain. The book is simplistic in its structure, language and doesn't challenge the reader's intelligence. Quite the contrary, she believes her audience to be so slow that she hits you over the head with her correctness. She should try being subtle and develop her own characters without relying on a dead woman's creativity. I'm glad I borrowed a copy from someone rather than contibuting to Ms. Randall's wallet.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be a slave to hype- read this book for yourself
Review: I completely enjoyed the Wind Done Gone. I've never read Gone With the Wind, but of course I've seen the movie. Even though it flips the script on a familiar story, it's reversal of Gone With the Wind is secondary and unimportant. If you've never read Gone with the Wind, or you're young enough not to have seen seen the movie you don't have to do either to enjoy Wind Done Gone. It's a good story, period. The slaves get to speak and we hear them say a lot more than they ever told Scarlet. I recommend new readers read Wind Done Gone first and then Gone with the Wind. The combination, in that order, is a more complete and interesting story. I think Ms. Mitchell would probably appreciate Ms. Randall's storyline. Gone With the Wind fanatics lighten up! The slaves have been set free.
|
