The Wind Done Gone

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Summary: The Final Question
Review: What a total disappointment! After finally getting around to reading"The Wind Done Gone
the final question on my mind was not "I wonder what happened to..?"or
Where The Mulatto children of Tara were, It was "Why did I bother to read this Book?!"
Ms Randall manages to take the beloved characters of Margaret Mitchell, and turn
them into a group of shallow, often bloodthirsty People.(Mammy And Prissy both
commit murder.)You find yourself constantly asking "whats the point?My advice to
anyone who enjoys a good read.... Dont buy this book!

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Summary: The Wind Done Gone: A Novel by Alice Randall
Review: After reading this book, my entire book club went...
... what was the point? We couldn't quite understand where the author was going with it. If someone out there has a clear understanding, please share

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Summary: Parallel universe, rather than parody
Review: This is a beautifully written book - every word fits and every word belongs - GWTW is a long and memorable ballad; this book is the haiku that captures the shadows.

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Summary: A BOOK TONI MORRISON SHOULD HAVE WROTE.
Review: I give TWDG four out of five stars because Alice Randall knew the relevance in writing a novel that counters "white americas" beloved GWTW. The subordination of blacks in every relationship to whites is even more pervasive today. But the tragic mulatta is played out. Cynara lived in a delusion. I wish Toni Morrison would have wrote it because she would have not wrote it from a confused mulatto point of view. Mabey Toni Morrison is too intelligent to waste her time with nonsense such as GWTW to write a novel that debunks it. Thats why she wrote Beloved.

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Summary: Much ado about nothing
Review: I bought this book because I was afraid that it would be pulled off the shelves quickly. I just love GWTW, so I figured I'd enjoy the parody "The Wind Done Gone". I found the book to be well written and the story was fairly interesting, but I don't think it is going to find a permanent home on the shelves. The story never truly grabbed me like I want a story to do. It isn't that the story was hard to follow, or anything, it just never fully grabbed my interest or my emotions.

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Summary: Alice Randall doesn't get it.
Review: Of course GWTW was racist. Consider the time in which it was written. Consider the people Margaret Mitchell was writing about; people, not necessarily evil, caught in a society that brutalized slaves. The O'Haras and others turned a blind eye to the inherent cruelty of the system. GWTW is a perfect example of that selective blindness.
GWTW is also an example of amazing storytelling. 'Wind Done Gone' is not. It is a boring book with shallow characters, who act only in response to situations set up in the earlier book. It is an attempt to play 'got you back,' not to create characters that are a true reflection of what slaves were in the South.

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Summary: A little 2 windy...
Review: I read the book because I like satire, and I have always wanted to see Scarlet get slapped back! Since the book had been controversial I couldn't resist reading it. However, about half way through, the "Wind Done Gone" lost it's 'bluster' and fizzled out for me. The narrator just kind of loses interest for you. I'd suggest reading it "just because" so you can say you've kept up with the times.

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Summary: Calling this book a parody serves as an injustice!
Review: While I feel that The Wind Done Gone is a very well written and thought provoking book, I am afraid that readers might see it as historical fact. By viewing this text as historical fact it would be seem to be an exact representation of the way that life was for a child on a Southern plantation. While I agree that the life of a mulatto child in Southern America would have been easier than their African counterparts the way that Randall depicts the life of "Cynara" is truly
one of romantic ideals, that has been stripped of all brutality. By not digging into the brutality of slavery a romantic view takes over and the traditional view of a beaten field hand is driven from one's mind. The best way to get the most out of this text is by combining it with books such as Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglass. By doing this the life of field hand is served through Douglass's account. All of the blood, sweat, sacrifice and toil that went into a southern plantation. With the use of both of these books one would be able to see the harsh brutality of slavery under the American plantation system, as well as the ability for mulatto children to "blend" into society (In The Wind Done Gone). Because of this, it is essential that The Wind Done Gone is seen as fiction that is ment to entertain and be thought provoking but not provide hard evidence of a slave's life in these times.

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Summary: Reading for perspective rather than entertainment.
Review: An earlier posting made reference to The Wind Done Gone as being "dishonorable towards all the CSA men fought & died for." This novel is making an attempt to portray the demise of the "Old South" through the eyes of a black woman, as opposed to a white woman in Gone with the Wind. How can this be seen as dishonorable, let alone more dishonorable than to disregard the system upon which the Old South was built upon, namely slavery? To condemn this book simply because it attempts to tell the same story through different eyes is foolish. And as one reader pointed out, a woman's attempt at finding her place in the world should not be considered boring or whiney. The quality and importance of The Wind Done Gone lies not in its structure or form, but in its ability to challenge an established idea and cause the reader to question an accepted idea, uncomfortable as it may be. The Wind Done Gone provides an opportunity not for entertaining reading but intellectual exploration of an important part of American history. The fact that it explores this by adapting characters and places which have been made familiar to many by a famous novel only increases the effects of the story.

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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.