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Summary: My favorite
Review: I first read this book in fifth grade, for a reading contest. Since then I reread it about every other year. Mitchell takes me into a whole different world with her story of Scarlett and Rhett, Melanie and Ashley. I love it!
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Summary: The Eternal Wind
Review: What else can be said about this great American epic? The classic coming of age book for many girls here in the South when they turn thirteen, it contains the whole story of the War Between the States amid a compelling love story. You will be glad when you read the book that you don't live in a time when you had to be in mourning for seven years. But, you will miss the era when honor, cause, and respect where such important issues.
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Summary: Take this flavorful book with a grain of salt.
Review: This book gets a lot of (justified) criticism about its racist content. The book shows us Slaveryworld; no one is beaten, whipped, branded or sold. The slaves are described in animal ways; Mammy is 'elephantlike,' other slaves are described in simian terms.
However, consider the time in which the book was written. It provides a marvelous example of selective blindness. Acknowledge the racism and focus on the wonderful storytelling and characters. The book has many valuable human qualities. For example, Mitchell portrays credible relationships between black and white characters. Despite the racism in the plot and the writing, the connections survive. In fact, they are all the more touching considering the terrible inequities suffered by the blacks in these relationships. Try to enjoy the book on its own terms. After all these years, it's still an exciting read.
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Summary: This is the best novel ever written!
Review: Even my husband enjoyed this one! This novel is the perfect combination of romance and action! If you have only seen the movie you haven't gotten the rest of the story! Once you read this one you will be hooked and Scarlett will have to be next! Enjoy!
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Summary: just read the book
Review: People read the book and leave all the politics aside if you're going to read this book. Enjoy it and remember this book was written in the 1930's. Very different way of thinking back then. I have read some of the reviews and I just threw my hands in the air and decided to write my review. That is how mad I got. Why? Well, everytime someone decides to write a review about a book that took place during the civil war someone has to put in there two cents, about how horrible the whites treated the slaves or how horrible slavery was. Please. Okay, yes slavery did happen. And I don't conden it niether. But everyday one can not escape not listening to it about the subject on t.v.(especially the Oprah show, I really think that lady spends her life talking about the subject, bitter woman, or movies, or songs, ect. ect. ect. From all I have read and seen and learned does one really believe all the plantation owners beat there slaves and killed them? I mean would a plantation owner who paid top dollar for a slave just take him home and starve him, beat him, and have chained him and just treat him worse than a dog. I don't think so. It just not possible that all plantation owners did that. If that really was widespread as we are lead to believe then now, then there would have been an uprising of slaves sooner then Civil War. There would not have been any need for a Civil War if all the whites of the South then were the cruel vicious monster we have been lead to believe they were. As allways when we have a small majorit of people to tell us history (that is t.v., roots, and all them bad history channels, and magazines and supposely non-fiction books that are written with the liberal mentality), they just re-write history. If one really wants to find out the history of the south. READ OLD BOOKS ON HISTORY!!! NOT THE NEW ONES!!! OLD BOOKS!!! WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT HISTORY IT HAS ALL BEEN RE-WRITTEN!!! Whew! I feel better now.
Oh by the way. This is from a Hispanic telling you this.
So if you really want to enjoy this book. Enjoy reading Scarlett scandals and her fight to never be hungry again. Enjoy her trying ever art she knows to take that poor excuse of a man Ashley away from the every loyal Melanie. Enjoy Scarlett when she tries to figure out Rhett and why she just cannot get it through her thick bull-headed head that she always has been in love him.
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Summary: a super book
Review: I first read this book when I was in 8th grade. It was for a reading program. I don't remember how long it took me to read it, but I remember thinking it was the greatest book I ever read. I have often tried to convince my friends to read it, but because of its length, they refuse. Let me tell you, the story of Scarlett and Rhett is one of the best out there. It was beautifully written by Mitchell, her descriptions of the characters are extremely vivid as if you are right there in the book with them. I recommend this book for everyone, whether or not this is your type of book. Every page will draw you closer to it and the life it shows. But ever since I have read this book, I've read it at least 3 more times since then. And it always takes me by surprise and pulls me along with it.
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Summary: This book is the bomb....
Review: Gone With The Wind is the best book ever written short of the Bible. I have heard people say it's rascist- my opinion is why sugarcoat everything that happened in the Civil War? I think there was rascism at the time the book takes place. The book was written with exhaustive historical truth- if you make it sound like blacks ran around in tuxedos, then you undermine their suffering. And make the book unreal. People did suffer, but not all slaves suffered. If you're looking for a superbly written romance, if you are smart enough to see through people, you will love GWTW. IF you can't, you won't be able to see how Scarlett, shrewd, hard, proud, stubbern, is also smart, learns how to yield, proud as a virtue, and persistant. She complains and dreams the whole time she saves Tara but through sheer grit she does it and saves the people on it. You maybe cannot see how Rhett Butler loves this unseeing woman with complete passion, devotion- 'as much as a man can love a woman'. How the dishonest blockade runner goes crazy when his adored little girl dies. How he is a real daddy to Scarlett's other fatherless children. Read this book--- it is all about people. Anytime we can see ourselves in something, with a small sense of guilt we indenify and fall in love with it. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!
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Summary: Read this book, but read with caution
Review: I loved this book! The most amazing thing about GONE WITH THE WIND (and there are many) are the beautiful characters that Mitchell creates. I felt pain, and laughter right along with Scarlett. All the characters seemed so real to me, and I grew to love them so. Mitchell is so brave to have not made a person like Melanie as the main character, a person that everyone would love. Instead she forces the reader to fall in love with a selfish, stubborn, mean, hateful person like Scarlett. Scarlett is definetly my favorite literary figure, she is by no means a perfect person, but you see parts of yourself in her, parts that you may not want to see, and that makes her all the more real. True to form, the most interesting characters in the book are the people with more sinister sides to themselves. To compliment Scarlett, there is of course, Rhett Butler. Every episode he was in came to life, just by the addition of his witty back handed comments, and his insightfullness to realize just how unscrupulous he and others are. Every diolouge is a joy, be it anyone from Prissy, to Rhett speaking, the words fly fromt the page, and never get boring. The turns that the book takes never fail to surprise. Once I got into this book, I couldn't put it down. The most important thing to remember while reading it though, is to take the book as it is. In parts, tales of the blacks lording over the whites, and the views of slaves, are hard to swallow, and painful to read. And they are not entirely accurate. But this was written by a southerner, in a different time, about an EXTREMELY different time, so all of these things must be taken in stride, and read with caution. Over all, this is a book that which will tear at your heart, make you cry with laughter, and, even make you fall in love with an ignorant, racist, Southern Belle.
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Summary: people read this book!
Review: Scarlett O' Hara has to be the most famous character ever written in all of literature. Her story about coming to age just when the Civil War began and having to learn everything she was taught is of no use to her during war and after war is a must read for anyone. Her transformation into a shrewd, lying and spoiled southern belle is just about the best for any reader who loves stories based on the southern way of life. I just have to say this book is not racist and it was never intended to be. Many people just think it is because now we are bombarded into thinking blacks are the victims of society due to them having been slaves. People this is the story of Scarlett O'Hara living in times when not many black people were educated. Some blacks were but many were not as the belief back then was that blacks were just not too smart to learn. Which we now know is not true. But one thing is true and what many of us now have to understand is that many blacks who were slaves did not want to be freed. Where were they going to go and what were they going to do after being free? What did they know about this strange land being freed? How were they going to survive? They didn't know and they didn't know anything about taking the intiative of oneself instead of being told what to do. And many blacks were defending the then southern way of living. Many slaves did love there slaveowners and wanted to remain with them. Many slaves did fight on the Confederate side willingly. Even when the south did lose the war many ex-slaves did stay with they're ex-slave owners because in they're way of thinking they still belonged to them. It was a mutual love. They did die fighting believing in the Confederate way of thinking. They were not brainwashed it was just they way of living that they knew. They loved there white folk like many Mammies did love there white kids as if they were they're own children. We have to remember that the way of thinking was completely different back then. We have to remember if that way of thinking was now we would think the same way. Love knows no barriers. The love of another to another is just that. Even if it meant a slave-owner loving his slave like a slave loved his owner. Didn't God have a commandment to treat your slave with respect and to give him his seventh year free. The bad people of this story were the carpetbaggers. They caused so much damage in this country back then that the states suffered it for years because of them. They lied to the ex-slaves by telling them to vote them into office and then wanting to have nothing to do with them. As Margaret Mitchell tells in the book many blacks were put into also. I read many books about this subject and it is true. The most ignorant and hateful towards white were put into office. They saw this as a way to get back at the whites for having them in slavery. But that is not it. Many slaves saw it as revenge because of the wrong done unto them by being slaves. What the carpetbaggers did was poison the minds of the ex-slaves by telling them it was wrong and it was wrong but they made them hate the whites by telling lies about how many whites ex-slaveowners beat, torture, and rape and commit atrocities against the blacks. Okay yes it did happen. But like many stories it was embellished. Only about a one percent of the whites did own plantations. Something we dont't believe but it is true. We have been taught that all whites back then were rich and made they're riches on the backs of blacks. That's not true. If it was then there would be more blacks in this country then there are whites. WE as a people of this time know our TIME only, meaning now or present time. We are a product of the liberal public education system. I mean we don't know our history or any other countries either. We love to embellish the past, everybody now who was of voting age swear up and down that they voted for Kennedy when he was running for the presidency. That is a complete lie. So everybody who now who is black (this is excluding the newly arrived black Africans) swear up and down they came from slaves. That is a lie also. Many black families immigrated into the US after the Civil War and after the nineteen hundreds. So many black people can't say they came from slaves. What I am saying is that the Jessie Jacksons and Al Sharptons of this world have poisoned many black people of this country to the point of wanting to hurt them and keep them enslaved in hatred towards the whites of this country. We should remember the civil war but not be embittered by it.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to read, difficult to deal with
Review: Like it or not-- and there are PLENTY of reasons not to like GWTW-- this book earns its status as a classic. It reminded me of Anna Karenina: well-written, brilliant & deliciously soapy plot, and ultimately depressing. In the end, I was fed up with Rhett & Scarlett, but I still cried for them. As a northerner living in the south, I got a new appreciation for/insight into the rich history of white southerners, but good luck finding any insight into the world of black southerners. True, Mitchell was a product of her times and one needs to allow for that, but she says some HORRIBLY insensitive things about black people. If you read this book, keep it in context. Remember that it is only one part of history, only one book, somewhere in the middle of truth and lies and legend. P.S.-- Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" would be an interesting book to read afterwards, especially if you need to restore your faith in true love.
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