The Wind Done Gone: A Novel

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: Interesting...
Review: After reading the other reviews on this board, I didn't know what to expect. People's own belief's seem to have colored their abilities to read this book from an objective point of view. As a black female, I have to say I enjoyed Gone With the Wind, because it is a good story. Regardless of my feelings about slavery and racism. When you cast aside any anger over slavery, anger because "the South lost", strange obsession with Gone With the Wind, etc., this book is merely an average little novel with some ironic plot twists.

The true story behind E. 's family history was hilarious to me! What a fantastic idea, and not so very far from the truth in some cases, I'd guess. There were many, many "blacks" in that era (and today) who looked "white", but were classified otherwise. So, it's entirely possible that some of the most important "white" figures in the U.S. today only became "white" when a great ancestor decided to "pass". If the children of the passing individual were never told the truth, then the current generation would never know. This particular twist made the entire book worth reading to me.

My one big thumbs down goes to the conclusion. I am still not sure who the parents of the Congressman's baby are? Cynara's actions were not well explained in this section.

Otherwise, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to others. It's a fun read! People, let go of your anger and just enjoy some good old FICTION now and then.

Rating:
Summary: Ooops! I forgot to write a story!
Review: Alice Randall's original concept for "The Wind Done Gone" was for it to be a parody of "Gone with the Wind" in the style of "Shamela." I haven't read "Shamela" (or "Pamela," which it is based on), but from what I have gathered, "Pamela" is a story about a virtuous woman who scorns her employer's advances, while in "Shamela," this woman is turned into a whore who was playing her employer all along.

If Randall was trying to make a story like that, then she succeeded. If "Gone with the Wind" was a world of strong, intelligent, good white Southerners and their stupid but kind-hearted black slaves; then "The Wind Done Gone" is a novel where those white people are shown to be morons and fools who understand little and are really controlled by those they thought they ruled (unless they're gay, like "Dreamy Gentleman" and "Beauty" - then they're nice people). In this sense, "The Wind Done Gone" succeeds.

Unfortunately, Randall was so busy ripping down the characters of "Gone with the Wind" that she forgot to create her own. I totally agree that Cynara/Cinnamon/Cindy is a Mary Sue. Unfortunately, she's not a very interesting one. She spends most of the story whining and moping about how she is so beautiful yet no one will ever accept her because she is black and she can't believe her parents betrayed her and on and on and on... The only time she does anything is when she leaves R. and enters into an improbable menage-a-trois with a black Congressman and a black woman who reminds her of Mealy Mouth (Melanie). By that time, I could care less.

With a boring heroine (and that's particuarly insulting, considering what a complex heroine Scarlett O'Hara was) and a story that goes nowhere, this book doesn't have much. I didn't buy that any of the characters of "Gone with the Wind" would act as they did in this book. The idea of Scarlett taking blame for something Cynara did, Melanie killing a slave out of anger, or Gerald having sex with Mammy is preposterous. However, if Randall had managed to make an interesting story, I would have forgiven it. Unfortunately, she didn't. The only character who really benefited from any revision was Lady (Ellen O'Hara) but the revelation that she had black blood seemed to only make an unclear point. This book is good as a curiosity, and nothing more.

Rating:
Summary: short and sweet
Review: I thought TWDG was a beautiful novel, just to put it in simple tremes...

Rating:
Summary: This is not so different from what'd done in Japan
Review: In Japan (where I live, long story) there is a thing called "doujinshi" which is a kind of underground comic book that fans and amateur artists create, parodying famous characters from anime, novels, you name it. They're sold at a big convention called the Comic Market in Tokyo twice a year. The books are a way for fans to show their devotion to the artwork and characters from the anime series the like, and explore with the characters (often with sexy results, and there are many sexual doujinshi and books that postulate male/male relationships between characters from Gundam, Pokemn, etc.). In Japan, the doujinshi are seen as parodies, and are not worried over by the copyright holders (except in the most extreme of circumstnaces), and in fact, the underground comic world of the doujinshi is one of the most creative you can find anywhere -- virtually all game, animation or manga companies draw their talent from the artists working in this field. That someone took this creative "doujinshi" type approach to explore a famous work from America does not surprise me, although I am disappointed at the ruckus it caused. Still, I believe that the corporate suits won't be able to stop this kind of thing from happening in the future. Go, creative people everywhere -- you are the greatest!

Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly fantastic
Review: Listen to the other reviewers: this is NOT a parody. It's not funny. I was expecting funny. What I got was one of the most dark, haunting, poking-into-uncomfortable-areas experiences with literature I have ever had. And I loved it.

As other readers have noted, it turns the romanticized pro-slavery ideology of GWTW on its head. If you don't want that, okay--don't read it. But it's done in such a masterfully emotive way that reading it is painful, humiliating, mesmerizing and sweet/sad. It's an experience everyone should at least try. There is such a wealth of careful detail here, and every bit of it hangs together, i.e., is plausible based on the events depicted in GWTW. (I always did wonder why bad things seemed to happen to Melanie whenever the slaves were close by.) The one thing I'd say Randall forgot to address was Will Benteen and Suellen O'Hara's claim to Tara.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful First Novel
Review: Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" was immensely popular, and, in its depiction of happy "darkies" devoted to "massa", immensely romanticized. Strangest of all is Mitchell's description of every slave on the plantation as coal black. Thanks to rampant sexual abuse of female slaves by white owners and overseers, slaves came in shade from ebony to ivory, but Mitchell apparently couldn't stomach the reality of miscegenation. In her parody of GWTW, "The Wind Done Gone", Alice Randall brings miscegenation to the reader up close and personal in the form of Cynara, the offspring of Gerald O'Hara ("Planter" in this book) and Mammy, whom Planter was happily dallying with while "Lady" (Ellen O'Hara) decorously pretended not to notice what was going on under her nose. Mammy is forced to give preference to "Other" (Scarlett) over her own child; she gets back at her owners by systematic infanticide of each male child "Lady" brings into the world (readers of GWTW will remember that three infant boys lay in the family graveyard, each bearing the name of Gerald O'Hara, Jr). Cynara is kindly treated by "Lady", oddly enough since "Lady" must know who her father is. Randall brings into her story some other well-known GWTW characters, notably the "Dreamy Gentleman" (who else but Ashley Wilkes), "Mealymouth" Melanie, and "R", Rhett Butler, whose affections Cynara alienates from "Other" and whom she ultimately abandons for one of her own.

Randall would have written a much better book if it had been told from the viewpoint of Mammy herself, or any of the other blacks from GWTW, especially one of the hundred unnamed field hands who occupied the lowest place on the totem pole; we might have felt all the indignity of their existence that Mitchell glossed over; we might have learned what it really meant to be a slave at Tara. But Randall was less interested in depth than in broad parody. In this she succeeded, but parody is often shallow by definition, and "The Wind Done Gone" is ultimately a shallow book. GWTW gave a romanticized and unrealistic picture of plantation slavery; "The Wind Done Gone" is equally unconvincing as a critique of the same institution. It's clever and well-written, but when all is said and done, Randall is putting us on rather than enlightening us. Overall, her book is a disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful First Novel
Review: Margaret Mitchell's estate claimed that "The Wind Done Gone" was a copyright violation of "Gone with the Wind," and was granted a preliminary injunction to prevent it's publication in 2001. The injunction was later lifted, after a confidential agreement was reached, one part of which was that the book must prominently display the words "an unauthorized parody" on its cover.

"An unauthorized parody" made me think that the book would likely turn out to be part "Read the shocking unauthorized biography of Scarlet O'Hara!!" and part second rate sitcom script. I could not have been more wrong. It is, rather, the haunting, thought-provoking and beautifully written story of Cynara, the slave half-sister of the character we know to be Scarlett, born to Scarlett's father and a much younger Mammy. The book is her diary, written in the spare and evocative voice of a woman who has seen past the appearance of things to the truth behind.

What struck me most about the story was how authentic it seemed, as if "Gone with the Wind" was the appearance, and this was how it really would have been. What happened to Scarlett, called Other, after Rhett left her, rang true, and seemed to be what would have been most likely to have happened in the real world of people we all know. Compare this, if you will, to the nonsense in the _authorixed_ sequel to "Gone with the Wind" called "Scarlett" where Rhett and Scarlett go off to have adventures, get ship-wrecked, swim with dolphins, and so on. The other characters, Mammy, Ashley, Rhett, Melanie, Mrs. O'Hara, are each given a history and a future that has the ring of truth to it. Most interesting of all is the extent of the true contribution the slaves would most likely have made to the life of this most famous of plantations.

The book is slim, and does not take time to work out the whole story. But its economy of language and delicacy of perception has the effect of focussing the reader on the essentials -- the life of a woman who sees things as they are, and who understands that uncompromising self-knowledge gives rise to spiritual dignity, not only for an individual, but also for a group of people whose passage through pain and injustice can create a sure knowledge of what is true, and of what is of value.

Rating:
Summary: A parasite of a parody!
Review: NOTE: MY TOPIC IS ABOUT THE WIND DONE GONE AND NOT SLAVERY(which I hate)!

Not liking the negro portrayal in GONE WITH THE WIND,Alice Randall therefore created her own version, a parody of the acclaimed southern classic.Therein lies the problem.

The trouble with parodies,it so intertwind with the original that it can be used as a sequel,a retelling or a new story with characters copied from the original but this time superior while degrading the original.So much so,readers begin to accept these false truth as the true truth.Not openly but in disguise, words like "what if" & "perhaps".Why?Because people always like scandals to famous chracters fiction or not.When that happen, a novel,even w/ the purest intent and purpose,gets butchered.

Here are some cases to prove my point & where the book failed:

1.THE PARODY/CONCEPT ITSELF-The whole purpose of this book is to show negroes aren't dumb and capable.If you read GWTW,as others call it"White-washed"&"Romantized",is in fact a love story.Plus Mitchell was trying to show how a civilization changes after a war,what better way to illustrate it than the old south?

But why portray negroes like that?
Obviously these fools didn't see Aunt Pitty,Hugh Elsing or Ashley.Aren't they white,helpless,pathetic and idiots?

If you read GWTW, What about the courageousness&modesty of Pork,The industriousness
&loyalty of Dilcey?What about Uncle Peter who single handly raised Charles&Melanie,who looked after and Protected Aunt Pitty?What about Rhett and Scarlett declaring Mammy as a smart old soul?Aren't these persons Negro and admirable traits?

2.MAMMY KILLING THE 3 SONS-In p.663 GWTW, a yankee tells Scarlett "do you think i can trust my babies to a negro?" She thought otherwise,and now Mammy kills Gerald's sons.Its thesame as saying negroes can't be trusted and they kill white babies and Randall was trying to show Negroes in a different light.This damages her&the book's credibility.Noble as her intent,but no good can come out of evil means.Its better to kill 10 people than 1 baby,as the saying goes.

3.GERALD/MAMMY-Check the background story of Ellen/Gerald.There can be no doubt of his fidelity.It takes a great deal of emotion for a person to get unhinged after a loved one's death.

4.CYNARA-She is an exact copy of Scarlett even their ages are thesame but this time she smart,beautiful,brown,a good mother compared to Scarlett.She even has Scarlett's strength & Rhett even prefers her.Ridiculous!if Rhett likers her than Scarlett he would've married her instead,or divorce scarlett after he have is way with her,Rhett boast of being ill-bred so his rep. wont matter.Why this nonesense of mistress and after death marriage?

The book,despite being well-written,feels like a parasite after reading created by a first-time author who wants instant fame,fortune making others accept and embrace that her work is better while destroying others hard work. If you want a book about the attrocities of slavery then buy UNCLE TOM's CABIN which is BETTER than this one.

NOTE: MY TOPIC IS ABOUT THE WIND DONE GONE AND NOT SLAVERY(which I hate)!


Rating:
Summary: Surptised it took so long for this to come out...
Review: Oh dear. The book that the Margaret Mitchell Estate wanted to ban. Why? Because, rather than seeing it as a parody, which Houghton-Mifflin's attorneys claimed, they said that Alice Randall's work was a sequel. Really? Well, no not really. For aficionados of Margaret Mitchell's only major novel, it's easy to spot who's who in this thought-provoking companion. There's `Other', `R.', `Mealy Mouth' and `Dreamy Gentleman'. But the star of this show is Cynara, the mixed race half-sister of Scarlett O'Hara. Alice Randall, an African-American whose ancestors include a Confederate calvaryman, was keen to address the heritage of mixed race Americans, so frequently ignored. Additionally, wanting to explode myths which have gone into the collective must have spurred her on to script this excellent first novel. So while we never see a shade of `Scarlett,' we know she's there. We also know that `Other' shuns reading, give or take the odd invoice, whereas Cynara uses the written word to understand the world into which she has been born. It's a powerful moment when she tells us of how she read that she was owned. A very different kind of bill! AR goes behind the original characters, exposing their ulterior motives. Why is `Dreamy Gentleman' so damned passionless when confronted by `Other'? And were the slaves really that scatty, or was it just a ploy to better their meagre lots? The cover of this book included the words `unauthorized,' and it was to my great pleasure that I read it over two days, in a Santa Monica library. Because we certainly can't buy it in our shops.