The Wind Done Gone

Rating:
Summary: not so great
Review: I didn't enjoy this as much as I expected to. The original "Gone with the Wind" has outrageous depictions of the slaves and this book, with its sparkling concept, could have been great. Unfortunately, though, there isn't much of a plot and the writing isn't very compelling. It's in diary form and represents the musings of Cynara, an ex-slave and the illegitimate daughter of "Mammy" and "Planter," the plantation owner of "Tata" [Tara], and the half-sister of "Other" [Scarlett]. In her entries, Cynara muses about the men who love her, her beloved Mammy and her rivalry with "Other", with some historical details thrown into the mix. ["We went to see a play at Ford's Theater. A woman's dress caught fire. Some of these new dyes are so dangerous."]

Her fixation on whether her Mammy loved her or "Other" better fills many entries, along with somewhat tiresome discourses about "R" [Rhett], whom Cynara seems to be primarily interested in because of her rivalry with "Other." ["When had R grown old? When did he stop being Other's husband? How will I know? How will I let myself know? When did I start loving R? Had it stopped? Could it stop? Had I ever really loved him, or had I just wanted what was hers? Was he mine before he was hers?"]

Cynara spends a lot of the diary fussing about "Other" [Scarlett]. ("["Other"] wasn't pretty... " "["Other"] knew I was the prettier one... " "["Other"] was not beautiful, but men seldom recognized this... ")

In this revisionist history, the slaves conspire to kill "Planter's" sons to maintain control over "Tata." "Miss Prissy" [Prissy] who in this version has a "keen and labyrinthine intelligence" surreptitiously kills off "Mealy Mouth." [Melanie Wilkes] Anyone would agree that the depiction of the slaves in the original "Gone With the Wind" was outrageous, but does it help matters to have a new version where the slaves conspire to kill [the "Planter's" and "Lady's"] white babies, who had not (yet) done any wrong to anyone? Does that "even up" history? The author also has "R" saying that "... all Irish are shiftless, lazy crackers, no matter how rich they get."

Further, this "diary", written as if the entries had been made in the 1870's, has a disconcerting "written in the twentieth-century" feel to it. One example of many of this is Cynara mentioning a self-taught black congressman and then noting "He merits a line in anybody's history of these United States." This is clearly a [valid] sentiment that one could have in evaluating today's history textbooks, but doesn't seem like anything someone would write in the 1870's.

I guess I was hoping this book would be something more like Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" where one came away with a compelling and deeply-researched look into another world.

All in all, not a great effort.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting perspective but disappointing overall
Review: I wanted to like this book, I really did (hey, its main character is named Cindy!). I was rooting for Randall to be able to publish it as a parody despite the lawsuits brought by the Mitchell estate, and it truly does lend an interesting perspective on what life might have been like for slaves in the deep south. (I especially enjoyed Cindy's comment that slave owners did not need to pay for sex in a brothel because they could "steal poontang" anytime they wanted.)

The first third or so of the book is quite good. But I found some of the events that occur later in the book too unbelievable, and I thought there were a few too many gratuitously sexual passages. I think the book is still worth reading, but the rave literary reviews I had read caused my expectations to be set higher than what the book delivered to me.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the fuss. No Scarlett, Rhett or Melanie here !
Review: Incredibly disappointing and poorly written. This is NOT a parody of Gone With The Wind, which has been a long time favorite of mine... Life on the plantation, Georgia, a spoiled heroine, the plight -- or well being -- of slaves before during and after the war, reconstruction, clothing, the essentials of food and shelter and survival, love and its tangles -- are barely covered, and at that without conviction or in an interesting,compelling, memorable manner. I'm sorry I bought the book. It wasn't worth it, and frankly, after the fact, I find the manner of its marketing to GWTW fans somewhat deceptive. A thumbs down.

Rating:
Summary: Not a parody or sequel
Review: I am about 1/3 way through this book, and it is very intriguing. It is reminiscent of Gone With the Wind, which I know mostly from the movie. I read the book by Margaret Mitchell many years ago, however, I don't see this book as a parody at all, nor a sequel. It's a different perspective on the view of the South offered in Gone with The Wind. I think Ms. Randall is respectful of the characters Mitchell created, and it is sort of like following someone peeping into GWTW and is thinking "hmmm, wait I know there's a shadow behind that door, and a few skeletons to boot." I am enjoying the book, it's fascinating. It's in first person, the story of a mulatto woman, her feelings and her inner life, so certainly this is not found in GWTW at all, and I'm glad to be able to read this. It's good, I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Randall Done Gone and Ran With It!
Review: This is a must read ... Alice Randall opens our eyes and superbly shows us an alternate portrayal of one of Americas favorite books. I'm so glad she won her battle in court to have this published, because this story needed to be told ...

Rating:
Summary: The Wind Done Gone
Review: I have a hard time understanding why there was so much controversary over the release of a parody on Gone With the Wind which was, of course, fiction. Although this was written from the opposite view point of Margaret Mitchell's novel, and I suppose the purpose was to tell the same story with the other view, so much of the story line did not match up. Over all, I reallly did not think much of the story even though I positively agree that the slave's lot was horrible and they existed solely for the pleasure and purpose of the whites.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting Spin-off of GWTW
Review: 'The Wind Done GoneEis not a parody of GWTW, as is stated on the cover of the book, but it is a story based on GWTW and told from the point of view of a minor character. Anyone who has already read GWTW can easily find the threads that Randal used in writing her novel. 'The Wind Done GoneEis told though the journal of Mammy's daughter Cynara. Early on in the novel the reader discovers Cynara's lineage and also why she does not show up more in the original story. Throughout Cynara's journal the reader discovers more and more incidents that both line up with GWTW, and also a new depth to some of the more minor characters. Reading about the portrayal of Ellen O'Hara ('LadyEin this book) not only created a completely new image of that character, but also gave an insight into what it meant to be black (I would elaborate, but I don't want to spoil it for future readers!).

I would like to end this by pointing out that neither 'The Wind Done GoneEnor 'Gone With The WindEare really an actual portrayal of life in the South before and after the Civil War. Both are works of FICTION, and should be read with that mind frame. If you want to read about the HISTORY of the South, I would recommend picking up Frederick Douglass's Narrative, which is one escaped slave's actual account of his time in slavery, or 'Down by the RiversideEby Charles Joyner, which talks about life in a South Carolinian slave community. Both of these books would give you a more realistic view to slave life than either TWDG or GWTW.

Rating:
Summary: No.
Review: Yes, there were many injustices in the south during the Civil War. Yes, slaves were abused, sexually and in many other ways. But here's the thing--Gone With the Wind, racist as it may be, is a beautiful, classic novel. Do I like that I have to turn off the "offense" button when I read it? No--but that hasn't stopped me from reading it more times than I can count. Novels don't have to be real; they're fantasy. I loved GWTW and I will always love it, though I would never want to live it. This book is exploiting the grandeur that was the story of Scarlett O'Hara. It's relevant--but not as a rip-off of the classic. Write it over; create new characters; write your own story of slavery. I would read it with pleasure and recognize how easily it could have happened like that. But, please, don't just take someone's ready-made story and change it around. I love Scarlett and Melanie and Rhett and Ashley and Mammy and Pork. The idea of Mammy killing Ellen's and Gerald's sons is horrifying. Yes, the black characters of GWTW were abused, but they were lovable. At the end of the day, GWTW is a story. It's not meant to be taken as truth. Please, Ms. Randall--write your own story. It's unfair to take one we love so much and tarnish it.

Rating:
Summary: An okay parody but as God is my witness, I wanted more
Review: When I first heard about the attempts by the estate of Margaret Mitchell to stop publication of Alice Randall's "The Wind Done Gone," I thought it was a no-brainer that the book should be published. But most of the stories talked about the book as telling the story of "Gone With The Wind" from the perspective of the slaves on the O'Hara plantation. I became very much interested in reading that story and in seeing the slavery issue explored much more than it ever was in Mitchell's classic novel. But once you start reading Randall's novel it becomes clear that this is a parody of GWTW rather than the thoughtful exploration the new stories seemed to suggest.

Randall's main character is Cynara, the daughter of "Planter" (i.e., Gerald) and Mammy. The name is taken from the line of poetry from which Mitchell got the title for her novel. The story takes place on the plantation "Tata," where "Garlic," Mammy and "Miss Priss" are really the ones in charge. In fact, Mammy has been killing the male children of "Planter" and "Lady," so that the slaves do not have to worry about a sober white man running the place. Cynara is far smarter than her half-sister "Other" (Scarlett), who is scarcely better than the the gay "Dreamy Gentleman" (Ashley), "Mealy Mouth" (Melanie), and the old and wrinkly "R" (Rhett).

Only when Cynara muses on how slavery made it impossible for Other to know if Mammy really loved her, something Cynara never had to worry about, does "The Wind Done Gone" really get at the untold side of GWTW. But ultimately Randall is more interested in achieving ridicule through her parody than a penetrating social critique. There have been novels dealing with the mulatto daughter of the plantation owner, Margaret Walker's 1967 novel "Jubilee" obviously comes to mind, but I must admit I have become enamored with what Mammy, Pork and Prissy really thought about Scarlett and the rest of the O'Haras. Obviously I should have paid more attention to what those news stories were telling. "The Wind Done Gone" is certainly clever, but I was really hoping for much more.

Rating:
Summary: Was The Controversy A Publicity Stunt?
Review: Thank God. I checked this book out at the library. It would have been a waste of money to buy it. I found it to be boring so I pressed on reading up to chapter 15 but it didn't get any better so the book went back unfinished. I think the controversy around this book was mainly for publicity to get people to buy it. It's so sad that most were disappointed.