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Summary: A Book no one should be without
Review: As an avid reader, I read this book, all 1037 pages, within about a week. I just couldn't put it down. Margaret Mitchell has skillfully woven life's everyday struggles in with the struggles only faced during Reconstruction. Although I do not beleive in Scarlett's thoughts about the war and Yankees and so on, it was almost hard not to empathyize with her and her struggles. Although all in all a nasty person, sometimes you can't help but love her.
The strength of character portrayed by Melanie Wilkes has decided for me what I will name my first little girl. Melanie.
As for Rhett, I do believe he is my favorite of them all.
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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I loved this book. It is a classic and everyone should read it! The sequel is also a must read!
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Summary: Absolutely a must to read! Perfect Tale
Review: It was a tale beautifully told.I just finished reading it,and I can't get out of it's spell.The tragic end is absolutely perfect. I'm a person who likes everything to be pleasant,and I expected the end to be a happy one - like Scarlett saying "I love you!" to Rhett and Rhett hugging her and saying he loved her too.I'm not dissappointed,just heart-broken.I didn't cry like one customer says she did,but still the odd feeling in my stomach won't go away yet.As I said,I just put down the book and it's great,even though it left a sinking feeling in my stomach. I can't figure how I can really be happy for an hour or so with this emotion left from the book. Let me tell you - this book is so powerful.I loved it.I feel sadness and pity for Scarlett.It's good that nothing like this really happened and it's just fiction.If you're sad,think like this - it's just a tale,not true,(even though it seems terribly real) and it just added things to your outlook on life and to your literature knowledge. You don't want to lose a moment of your life mourning over a tale that didn't even exist,and Scarlett wouldn't want you to. :)) So just smile,and let that smile be a grateful one to Margaret Michell.She really changed you,didn't she?
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Summary: Brilliant characterisation
Review: Margaret Mitchell presents characters whose depth is astonishing, and depictions of varied relationships that can reach the reader on numerous levels. This is not merely a love story or glorified version of a tragic historical period, but an intense treatment of much of the paradox in human nature.Regarding the racial issue - I would say that the depiction of blatant racism in this book is all the more powerful because everything is told from the Southern aristocrat's point of view. The characters need to believe, and have convinced themselves, that they are benevolent and affectionate towards their slaves! Yet they refer to these same people as "apes" without seeing their own horrifying stance. When Melanie, supposedly the soul of kindness, tells Ashley that, if they move North, they cannot let Beau attend school and "have pickaninnies in his class," it shows the horror of racism just as clearly as if the reader had seen the miserable lot of the slaves. Scarlett, certainly no heroine and one with no principles who'd like merely the reputation for being a "great lady," is a most intriguing character. As Margaret Mitchell makes clear in many references, we have here one who is incapable of being at all analytical. (Except for Rhett, and, to some extent, Gerald, only Mammy can see through Scarlett's facade.) The Ashley she loves is a creation of her imagination - and it is interesting that, for all that she despises Melanie, the traits Melanie has which Scarlett most derides are very much the same as those in the Ellen that she idolises. The book has so many fascinating characters that one could read it ten times and still find one has only scratched the surface. Those like myself, who cannot imagine too many settings they'd like to enter less than the "old South," can find it interesting to explore the situation of those who find their entire world has collapsed around them.
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Summary: was that about slavery?
Review: As angela camack pointed out, the film "gone with the wind represents the institution of slavery as a walk in the park. The fact that the movie lasted over a period of years and it rarely showed a violent act towards a Black person is solid proof. The truth of the matter is that slavery in the deep south, likes places such as south carolina, was incredibly brutal and violated most human rights. The film attempted to depict slavery as a life where none of the slaves got beaten, whipped or raped, when in reality violent acts towards Black individuals was a common day occurrence. According to Frederick Douglass slaves were beaten weekly to strike fear into the other slaves. Women were raped continually over years of their lives in order to perpetuate the institution of slavery. Families were torn apart from each other due to the trading and selling of slaves. Gone With the Wind could have done a little more justice to Black Americans by not under emphasizing the torture and pain that they endured during the 19th century. Apart from its ignorant illusion of slavery the movie does illustrate, as Mark Burgh points out, the hardships of post Civil War life in the south. Scarlett O'Hara never had to do a thing for herself before the war. By the time Sherman was done marching to the sea she had made up her mind that she was going to conform to the new northern way of life in order to survive under the new politic. A lot of people in the south had to make that change, and I think that movie does an excellent job of showing the changes in life style before and after the war
Rating: 
Summary: purely for fiction
Review: "Gone With the Wind", taken as pure fiction, stands as an interesting and well-written tale of life in the Old South. Characters are well developed and constant in their portrayal of the complexities of love and life under the strain of a collapsing civilization. Survival amidst tremendous hardships and the source of strength in the human soul are topics that the novel/movie address nicely. However, taken in a context of reality, "Gone With the Wind" is insulting to the reader's/viewer's intelligence and to the ancestors of Southerners, both black and white, free and slave, through its completely one-sided depiction of life in the plantation south. Many other reviewers on this site have commented that "Gone With the Wind" is a nice change from other books and movies in that it portrays the master/slave relationship as being affable. The truth, however, is not so pleasant. It is evident from the reading of historical documents that even the kindest of slaveholders did not keep their slaves as well-clothed, well-fed, and lightly worked as the O'Haras kept theirs. Only once did the movie portray slaves doing field labor. It never showed the slaves' living quarters, which were often less than comfortable. The only brutality and punishment it showed was when Scarlet hit Prissy for not moving fast enough when Melanie was giving birth. The representation of Mammy is partly accurate in that she was a jack-of-all-trades woman who cared especially for the master's children. The other side of the "Mammy" role however, was that on most plantations, the mammy was overworked, on-call 24 hours a day, and abused sexually and physically by the master. Also, a mammy would have never had the authority to boss around a master's daughter like Mammy bossed around Scarlet. For those who desire a well-written piece of fiction that takes place in a beautiful and gentile fantasy world called the Old South, I would surely recommend "Gone With the Wind". For those who know better than to believe in illusions of peace and warmth in the plantation south and who enjoy books that have at least one foot in the doorway of reality, "Gone With the Wind" will not be on your list of favorites.
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Summary: My Absolute Favorite Book
Review: When I saw this book on my mom's bookshelf two years ago, I wanted to read it because I thought that that would make me a "grown up". But reading it was better than that. I was fascinated by the Southern way of life, as I had only heard bad things about the Confederacy in my history class (it was soooo one-sided). It seemed so beautiful, what with the chivalrous gentlemen and their demure ladies. It was a world where Melanie completely belonged, but Scarlett was in the wrong age. I was so frusterated to see how Scarlett had to forfeit friends and society to keep herself alive. It's hard to like her, but it's impossible not to! She's cold, dismissive to her friends, and uses her looks to get her way- but you like her anyway, no matter how much you admire the other characters for their sweetness and chivalry. You like that she's willing to do everything for Ashley, for Gerald, for Tara. And you're upset when Rhett leaves her even though she completely deserved it. She can get things done, and she will, and we like her. For me, the face of the Confederacy will always be the face of Scarlett O'Hara- con artist, tart, hypocrite, and so much more. And yet still, a part of me wishes that I had been a part of that face.
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Summary: A novel that will live forever
Review: Margaret Mitchell was my Great-Great Aunt. From her, I inherited some of my facial characteristics,and also a talent for writing. I first read my aunts book when I was in 7th grade, and fell head over heels in love with it. It was a story that depicted the life from a southern point of view. In a vast majority of the Civil-War era novels, the Confederates are made out to be unruly rebels. Not ALL southerners were like that. Take The O'Hara family for example,did not treat their slaves badly, as many southern plantation owners were made out to be. I'm not denying the act of slavery as being horrible, for I know that it was, but at the same time, Margaret showed both sides. She showed the hardships and difficulties, loves and pleasures of southern life, and for that I am unbelievable proud to say that I am her blood.
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Summary: THE GREATEST WIND
Review: The book "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell is my favorite book ever. Since I was only in sixth grade when I read it, even I found it a great book. Both the movie and the book have been American standards for literature. There are dozens of memorable characters, with plenty of juicy parts to hold it together. Even though it is 1,024 pages, it is very hard to put down. I read it over three months, about 20 pages a day, and I had to limit myself! This is surely the greatest book ever written. However, if you are the movie type, do not let me limit you. See the Academy Award winning move "Gone With The Wind" with Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable give thier performance of thier career! Filled with lots of exciting characters, events, scenery, and detail; all of this is needed to create the best piece of American Literature, and "Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell has it all.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Brilliant - A Work of Art
Review: I'm a literary snob, I'll admit it. I've read all the classics, and I even know some Literary Theory. Gone With the Wind? Pul-lease, racist, sexist, revanchist trash, made popular by all the young woman dreaming of being Scarlett and having both their Rhett and Ashley. Cheerleader fare. Escapist. WRONG! Gone with the Wind is an American War & Peace. This is serious literature, which won the Pulitzer prize, no less. Most people don't see past the epic plot (which isn't as cut and dried as you may think) or the love story, but this is no less than a successfull attempt to reclaim a discarded culture. It is not about crinoline and lace, it it about the Apocalypse and how losers of the counter-revolution must learn to live in a place where all their politics, personal or civil, are demolished. Scarlett O'Hara is popular because she is an American, driven, materialistic, sentimental and utterly ruthless. Rhett Bulter is the tragic character of this book; the way of life and ideals he disdained are killing him, and he suffers like no one else in this post-apocalyptic landscape. His departure at the end is an act of contrition as much as a romantic failure; he had tried to recreate the materialism of the ante-bellum world, but negeclected the spirituality (such as it is) of men like Ashley Wilkes. Both men, the dreamer and the realist end up alone in a very sterile place. This book is proto-feminist as well. Scarlett survives, even as everything around her dies, but in the end, she too is alone. Don't dumb this masterpiece down. The movie fails to capture even a tenth of the depth here. And that awful sequel! Caused by the mistake that this book is some kind of romance novel. This is Art, and you can't stick a new ending on it, any more than you can a great painting or musical composition.
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