Gone with the Wind

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Summary: The Great American Novel
Review: This was the best book I have ever read. I admit that it starts out slowly, but the rest of the book is well worth it. After reading the first chapter, I thought it was the most boring book in the world. But I kept on reading because of all of the wonderful things I have heard about Gone With The Wind. I was unable to put this novel down! I was engrossed in the story of the Old South. I highly recommend this book. It will be an experience you will never forget!

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Summary: Unputdownable!
Review: What a thumping good read! Unright-on and politically incorrect it may be, but frankly my dear... This book contains all things horrid - racism, slavery, going for your best friend's man (and your sister's!), cruelty to animals and unfortunates, deforestation, to name but a few. But so what? The characters are so strong they could be placed in any walk of life and flourish. OK, maybe not that insipid piscean-like Ashley Wilkes, but he should've been drowned at birth anyhow! How Scarlett could've been gagging for him for any longer than a couple of weeks is a mystery to me, but I guess he was a challenge (no wonder Rhett felt inadequate!). To be fair, the book does goes on a bit in parts, and I feel Margaret Mitchell could've employed her journalistic skills and been a little more succinct. There are a number of characters that I see no need for and having seen the film so many times, I believe she could have honed her dialogue more. But Mags is so much kinder to Scarlett than Victor Fleming is in the movie. On film Scarlett is portrayed as a ball-breaker - which to a certain extent she most commendably is! - whereas in the book we see her thought processes and we understand why she is like she is. She's a tough cookie who is simply unprepared to have nothing 'coz her contemporaries harp on about honour and the good old days. She's MOVIN'! Plus in the book we see a far darker Rhett than the role interpreted by Clark Gable. He's cool, he's a bad boy, he's loaded, but let's face it, the guy's got problems! He knew what he was getting into when he met Ms O'Hara, but he still pursued her for years. He's got some gall to turn round and moan that she isn't the way he wanted her to be, believing he could have changed her and made her love him. And then when she discovers it for herself... well Scarlett, the game's over! I'm not interested anymore. But hey, we still love him, he still packs a punch more than Frank, Charles and that stupid Ashley and he keeps you guessing. Does she get him back? Probably eventually. Scarlett has screwed up by being such a foolhardy hothead, but give her a break! With Melanie gone, she's got no pals and you know Scarlett will honour her promise and look out for Ashley... urgh! With any luck the man will get abducted by aliens and everyone can get on with their lives!

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Summary: What is there to say?
Review: It's a masterpiece that will never be matched

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Summary: The other side of the coin...
Review: I finally read this book years after seeing the motion picture. I fell in love with the characters and found my sympathies and compassion straining towards those I hadn't imagined I could feel anything for... Rhett knew what he was getting into, yet he loved Scarlet despite all her fall-backs and the knowledge he'd always be in another man's shadow. Rhett and Melanie were my favourite characters because they were both strong people who had the courage to love. I agree this book could be seen as racist, yet I also believe it is a historical novel in some parts which does justice to the Southerners side of the story. Yes, none of us agree with slavery. However, those were the times and that's how life was. Margaret Mitchell is being true. She displays the sympathies of the time her book is set. Judging it by modern standards of racism is the same as judging Shakespeare by modern political correctness. You can't. I belive this is a beautiful book and a beautiful love story. I encourage anyone with an open mind and a compassionate heart to read it.

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Summary: THE MOST WONDERFUL, EXCITING, BEST BOOK EVER!
Review: This book is a definite YES! It's exciting and it keeps you on the egde of your seat. It's so hard to put down! Scarlett and Rhett are such believeable characters and this is definitely the BEST book ever written. I strongly suggest you purchase it or check it out. This is a super book. It gives an exellent portrayal of the south before and after the war. It gives you the south's point of view. I would give it 10000000000000000000 stars!

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Summary: Gone with the Wind: The greatest love story ever
Review: Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler are classic charecters along with the rest of them. They're as classic as the story. So much history is in the book. It gives a clear and good picture of how it was during that time. Everything isn't perfect. I'm 11 years old. That may seem too young to understand such a classic love story but I did. It was even better than other love stories like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. Not to say they aren't classics. Ms. Mitchell writes the story clearly and comes straight to the point unlike for instance Henry James who takes up 2 pages to describe a woman's dress. If you read one love story in your life or watch one movie make it Gone with the Wind.

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Summary: Lust... melodrama... passion... and crinoline.
Review: Margaret Mitchell wrote, for her first book (an earlier work, called "Lost Laysen" has since been published), an exhaustingly researched, wide-ranging, exciting and thrilling book set in the Civil War. This book - Gone With The Wind - was a runaway success; and ultimately made into the biggest movie of its day. Alright, let's admit it, by modern standards it's sexist, racist, overblown, and melodramatic. And it's pretty darned brilliant. I have read this book no less than ten times! In theory, one ought to detest that spoiled little brazen, Scarlett O'Hara, but Margaret Mitchell makes her into a vivid, strong human being, a woman with spirit and the will to survive, but who was essentially immature and spoilt. But she was fiercely protective, loyal, and someone who you were forced to admire, even as you disliked what she was doing. She also had a alarming propensity to fall in love with the wrong men - this was a woman doomed to claw her way anywhere to succeed, but at the same time, estranging herself in the eyes of her Society. But does she give up, does she make it a tragedy? No. She gets up and keeps going, she just doesn't let people see that she minds it very much. She is an inspiration, but she doesn't really deserve to be. Scarlett is flawed, hideously so, but none the less, we are forced to admire her. She IS the book. A weaker or less flawed heroine would be irritating or just TOO unsympathetic. Her unrequitted love is very believable, it's happened to most of us at one time in our youth, and we never really quite shake that first infatuation off without a rude or painful awakening.

The attitudes which feature in this book, although sexist and racist to us now, were perfectly normal for Civil War Southerners - Margaret Mitchell really understood the way people behaved at this time, and did not make them behave out of period or in anachronistic ways. Like Georgette Heyer and Regency England, she has a true understanding and insight into the period she is writing about - she LIVES it, and her people could have been alive then without unduly standing out as unusual or unremarkable.

Scarlett is a rebel, but she does not go as far as a modern author might make her heroine go. She loves her family and her land, though she may deny it, and she is very proud. She is an inspirational woman, a true forerunner of the power woman of the 1980s - a sensational concept, even for the 1930s! The clever thing is how, in such a huge and spreading book, everything comes together. It may seem trivial and unnecessary to discuss Aunt Pittypat's drawing room, or go into the minutae of Scarlett's wardrobe, or to discuss events that happened a long time ago, but believe me, it is all very important in building up a coherent and very accurate (scarily accurate, for 1930s historical fiction - Heyer and Mitchell, as far as I know, were the only authors at this time who really bothered to research in depth for their "lightweight" historical fiction writing.) Gone With The Wind is a masterpiece. It must not be read with modern eyes, but as an amazing study of how people behaved, lived, and survived throughout the Civil War in America on the losing side.

Rating:
Summary: The BEST book ever written
Review: This book is the best thing I've ever read in my life! The details are fantastic and the characters are well portrayed. The storyline is classic! This book immediately sucks you into the story and makes you really care about the characters in it. It made me laugh, it made me angry, it made me cry, and most of all it made my heart melt. I think this is the finest book ever written.

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Summary: THE WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN!
Review: THIS IS THE WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN! IT WAS PAINFUL FOR ME TO READ THIS GARBAGE! MARGARET MITCHELL WAS OBVIOUSLY RACIST! C'MON, JUST READ THE PART ABOUT RECONSTRUCTION! AND HOW SCARLETT CAN TREAT THE SLAVES LIKE DIRT AFTER THEY HAD MADE TARA A PLANTATION, AND KEPT FOOD ON THE TABLE! REALLY, IF RHETT LOVED HER "SO" MUCH, HOW COULD HE JUST LEAVE HER LIKE THAT! THIS BOOK COULD HAVE ABOUT 200 PAGES AND STILL BE TOO LONG! TALK ABOUT TRIVIAL DETAIL! (The hat was emerald green, with a large bouncy ostrich plume, and wide emerald ribbons as big as Scarlett's hands. The dress was 12 yards of green sprigged muslin with only tiny puffed sleeves, it was low enough to be a dancing dress, and certainly not suitable for a morning barbecue. The dress was a green plaid tarlatan, so wide it reduced her wasit to nothingless. Oh, she'd lead that waltz with an apple-green watered-silk dress, and dark green ribbons on her bosom and white tuberroses in her hair.) REALLY, WHO GIVES A DAMN!

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Summary: Exciting Wind
Review: Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, is a stunning book which is sure to hold readers enthralled. Embark on an exciting journey, following the flirtatious Scarlett O'Hara, dashing blockade runner Rhett Butler, sweetness personified Melanie Hamilton, and the wistful Ashley Wilkes. Scarlett has always been a petulant, coquettish, southern belle. But too soon, the Civil War strikes, and Scarlett's perfect world shatters around her. Her beloved Ashley is married to Melly, a girl Scarlett feels is the perfect example of boredom. During the tragic, bloody years of the Civil War, the sardonic Rhett Butler enters Scarlett's life. This stunning book is not only a historical melodrama, but also a book that reflects the human heart and shows how Scarlett can change from a selfish person to a strong woman.