Gone With the Wind

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Summary: Gone with the wind
Review: I love this book. I could read it over and over again. While it isn't very well written, it has the ability to take you there into the story and forget everything going on around you. It gives you a lot more detail then the movie, and makes you understand the characters more. You can really understand the motivation behind some of their actions.

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Summary: Put aside your PC predilections....
Review: Published in 1936, can any serious reader expect Gone With the Wind to mesh with 21st-century sensibilities? Of course not. Therefore, it may be wiser to open this book, put sensibilities aside, and let it rip because Gone With the Wind is simply a classic. Margaret Mitchell's Confederate sympathies hold little in the way of ambivalence. The dream-like plantation lifestyle, it's total devastation, and the abject humiliation of it's adherents under Reconstruction are starkly protrayed. Amidst the tragedy of civil war, Mitchell places a bevy of unforgettable characters whose inner strengths and weaknesses receive vivid definition - the interplay of which is truly sublime.

Gone With the Wind is ultimately a story of traumatic loss and dogged perserverence, overcoming disaster, peeling oneself off of the cold, hard floor. To be sure, there is wicked condescension, biased justifications, premises so one-sided they defy belief, but through it all Gone With the Wind stands with Tolstoy's War and Peace in it's ability to bring the social costs of war to the surface in a manner both eloquent and disturbing. This book should be read by all. 5+ stars.

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Summary: One of the best
Review: Gone With the Wind was a fantastic book. It's about this young woman, Scarlett O'Hara, who is living during the Civil War-in the south. Her rich and perfect life is ruined once the south loses the war and she is thrown into a time of starvation and misery. She becomes a widow and has to face those troubles as well.

Mitchell created the character, Scarlett, wonderfully. She had spunk, determination, intelligence, and selfishness-traits that made her personality interesting. She does what ever she needs to get her by. Then there's Rhett. He's this dashing man who is no gentleman. I have to say, he brought a little bit of light into the dark parts of the book. He seems to be just a rude, mischevious man at first, but later on, Mitchell makes his character more full, shall I say. His character is deep and full of emotion and feelings-I really can't describe it.
Then Margaret Mitchell created a bond and passion between these two characters. It was a wonderful romance, with love and anger-a sort of bittersweet romance. I felt I could connect with these characters.
I loved this novel; I couldn't put it down. I read it at a young age, 11 to be exact, but I was into it none the less. It kept me hooked for 7 weeks until I finally finished it. It's long-really long-but absolutely worth it. I loved it, loved it, loved it! This book tied together historical fiction and romance, my favorite types of books, into one novel. It is a book not to be forgotten-ever.


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Summary: Immensely enjoyable (aside from the beginning)
Review: I must admit that the first 100-200 pages were not so interesting. But everything after that was great. You get a real feel for each character - Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie, Ashley, Mammy, etc. This book contains everything - everyday life, tragedy, war, humor, love, etc.

The more you read, the more entrenched you get in it. It's written very well. Its not your typical love story - it has much more to it. I got so into it to the point where I felt for each character. It's definitely a must read. I enjoyed it immensely.

Every day I looked forward to reading it. It's relaxing (not like your modern suspenseful-murder-thriller book) yet so interesting.

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Summary: Old South life depicted with unflinching realism
Review: Unlike the movie, this book is NOT a "romance novel"; it's a hard-hitting account of Southern life during the Civil War, told from a Southern point of view, told as if from the period. The racist attitudes of the time, though naturally, entirely unsavory from today's point of view, existed, and denying it won't erase the facts. Mitchell WASN'T trying to make a statement of ANY kind, pro or con; she merely wrote on how things were, as opposed to how one wished they might be, or wished them to be different. The dichotomies between black and white life are entirely realistic, and to portray them as anything otherwise would be foolhardy. The only way to know how ghastly our history was in terms of its treatment of humanity is to preserve the facts as they were, and this book, without even trying, does exactly that.

Too, it would be a serious mistake to paint this book as an idyllic, romantic love story. Mitchell, to her credit, does not fall back on dime-store novel clichés, and unfortunately, she is rarely accorded respect for this. Because of the movie, an entirely different, not altogether flattering, slant permeates the whole "Gone With The Wind" phenomenon - and which debased Mitchell's intentions in the appalling Alexandra Ripley sequel.
If everyone who saw the film had read the book, realization might be more widespread as to how they differ, and how much more complex and sharply drawn are the characters.

Scarlett and Rhett are two unapologetic opportunists who are startlingly lacking in typical "storybook" appeal. Instead, their "appeal" is in how earthy and shrewd they both are, survivors by discarding public approval and approbation. In the end, both are humbled ("redeemed" is too strong a word) by life and their chronic misunderstanding of each other - and wind up, naturally, alone. Mitchell, shrewdly enough, in a rare move of unsentimentality, does not go the "happily ever after" route - Rhett leaves Scarlett, ruthlessly, abruptly. How could Butler, after being so shabbily treated, retain his self-respect by staying with Scarlett? All the other characters are drawn with wonderful strokes of originality and vividness - human, flawed and far more appealing than the pastel versions portrayed in the film.

Mitchell was an incredible vernacular writer, and her skills in doing so emphasized the differences between all the cultures, classes and races. Astonishing is Mitchell's ability to combine history, social commentary and fiction with unbelievable ease; after several hours of reading, the reader may feel as though he had been in a virtual time machine, so indelibly detailed are the locales, weather, sounds and even smells. Even more absorbing are the marvelous dialogues between the characters, especially those of Rhett and Scarlett. Mitchell had a grasp as to how humans interact through words, and unlike, say, Ayn Rand, the conversations sound as if they are spoken by real people.

Finally, though, for those who thought that Mitchell was Olde-Tyme in her attitudes and conventions because she was able to depict them so vividly, I suggest the reader pay close attention to the character of Rhett Butler, and his disdain for Old South values. Mitchell pulled a fast one by revealing, through Butler's character, just how modern a thinker she was. Butler repeatedly upbraids Scarlett for her early adherence to an antiquated "value system" and mockingly scorns the society around him. He sees what a sham and fakery of all the conventions that exist, and of having to accede to a mass-mentality. Through Rhett Butler, Mitchell slyly tucks in her own incredibly multi-faceted, intellectually-based mindset.

Mitchell's book is one of the true greats in American novels.