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Summary: YES to strong women!
Review: I first read GWTW when I was a teenager and recently reread it after reading several books about strong women. The book is just as good as I remembered. Stories about brave women who keep moving forward have always inspired me. If you have never read GWTW, do yourself a favor and take the leap. Mitchell takes you right into the heart of a time that affected all Americans. Living in Atlanta where the book was set makes it even more appealing to me. After you finish this book, take a chance and read about other strong women that are alive and well, even as I write this. I was blown away by Mayada Al-Askari, in Mayada, Daughter of Iraq.
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Summary: Read It For More Than The Love Story...
Review: If you read GWTW strictly as a love story,you're missing part of the picture,and I'm saying this as someone who DID read it as a love story many years ago at the age of twelve. And I don't mean just the surface historical picture either.It goes so much deeper.
Scarlett is of course the central character,and to me,a metaphor for the "New South",in that she compromises with the new circumstances in order to survive.Melanie appeared to me as a symbol of the "Old South"-but the part of it that had integrity and strength.They needed each other in order to survive,and it took Scarlett until the end of the book to realise this.Ashley is the part of the Old South that couldn't adjust.Rhett is the person who though he despised the old ways and all they stood for until age and time made him begin to realise what he had thrown away.He still had a cynicism about it,but he also had an appreciation for the charm of a time that would never be again.
As with many others,Scarlett was my favorite character in my first few readings,but I came to a new appreciation of Melanie over time. I began to see that she had a true quiet strength that Scarlett could never approach,one that didn't require her to compromise her principles and her loyalty,as Scarlett had to,in order to survive. The character of Ashley,on many further readings,doesn't appear quite as pathetic as before(though I never found him THAT pathetic in the first place).He was simply,as he tragically recognised,an anachronism in his time,a beautiful dream which evaporated under the harsh glare of a new reality.He was the part of the dream that Scarlett clung to,even as she clung to the ideal of her mother Ellen,never seeing the truth of these ideals-the honor,strength,and integrity of the dream,rather than the outward forms.This was HER tragedy-even though she was a survivor of a kind,she had to destroy all that was good in order to do so.Melanie had the true moral courage that allowed her to survive without destroying the good-to me,a much more difficult kind of survival.
I'll need to read this book so many more times before I'll feel finally understand it all,if I ever will.I understand the old story,being born and raised in the South,of the struggle to hold on to your identity and still be a part of the world around you.I understand why The War can feel like yesterday-after all, most of it was fought on the soil here,and the losers always remember longer.I think the background of Scarlett's father,Gerald O'Hara from Ireland,neatly ties into this.
Read and re-read this book,because everytime you do you'll find depths you didn't plumb before.There is so much symbolism to be explored,each reading will provoke new thoughts.
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Summary: Substantial, provocative, and still fresh
Review: I was hesitant to pick this up and read it for two reasons: It's size, and the fact that I had seen the movie no less than seven or eight times.So I decided to buy it on Amazon, but when it arrived, I thought to myself, "I'll just read the first page." Two-hundred pages later I was still reading. I was totally blown away by the excellent writing. While I knew the characters (though there are more in the book than in the movie) I was intrigued to see how Mitchell put them all together. The book is actually better than the movie, if you can believe that! I would say there are three book on the South that are must reads, GONE WITH THE WIND being an obvious one. The other two are TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and Jackson McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD. All three of these books are page-turners with well-developed characters, great plot, wonderful descriptions,and insight into the human condition. William Faulker said that the only thing worth writing about was the conflict within the human heart. These three books have that, and it's beautifully portrayed, especially in GONE WITH THE WIND. Of all the books out there, GONE WITH THE WIND if my all-time favorite! Also recommended: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
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Summary: The Best BQQK Ever!
Review: I just loved this book! Filled with human drama, emotional conflict over basic values, and set against a war for civil justice. I saw the movie seven times! But the book was seven times better! I plan on reading it until the pages wear so thin that I can see right through them! Gone With the Wind beats any other book I've read including like my math book. This is the right way to study history! Signed: An enthusiastic 12 year old! ;-)
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Summary: Warning: This book will break your heart
Review: Gone With the Wind is an amazing book that leaves you a changed person. Treasure, treasure, treasure your first time read because the impact of this book is so deep you'll be left in a trance for days. Whilst reading this novel you will eat, sleep, breathe Gone With the Wind - so place any important activities on hold and don't read if there is any exams ahead! The first time you read it is a feeling that will be in your heart forever!!! A magical journey that grips your senses and rips at your heart, but devestatingly,can only be travelled once. But don't worry, although you can never really grasp those same feeling ever again, the book will still have you hooked everytime you read it. You will still hope and wish that Scarlett will find true happiness, even if such dreams are futile. I've read it on average once a year since that first awesome time and it neevr ceases to hook me in. The characters are all well-developed, particularly Scarlett (the main character). The reader is given a great insight and undestanding of Scarlett which is why she rightfully claims her spot in history. She is quite simply unforgettable. An amazing character who stands the test of time and, in my mind, has become a memory of a real person. Reader's should not look to this book for the rights and wrongs of slavery or deep insights of the civil war. This is a romance novel that Mitchell has intwined beautifully with minor war details and a subtle look into the pre-war South. There is a reason why this is one of the most well-known and purchased book of all time. Read it and you will find out. But be warned, the ending will break your heart and it will be as painful as any real-life romance. Hard to believe I know, but the characters so amazing that they stay with you 24 hours a day whislt reading and you feel their emotions like you are them. Margaret Mitchell was a very talented lady.
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Summary: American classic
Review: Perhaps because it was made into a hit movie, this book is sometimes considered a "romance novel" instead of great literature. It is, in fact, one of the great American novels. Mitchell does not portray the antebellum South as an ideal but rather a doomed society, like the "Tara" of Irish myth. The characters are thoroughly developed and complex. A must read for anyone interested in the Civil War, women in fiction, and American literature.
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Summary: Fantastic
Review: I absolutely loved Gone With the Wind. I read over the summer because it was one of the choices on my school reading list and my mother and sister had read it and loved it. I didnt expect to like it all that much, but I was hooked after the first ten pages. It has become my favorite book. I couldn't stop thinking about it when I finished. I have reread it at least three times, and I am still left with the same feeling I had the first time. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I would give it ten stars if I could.
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Summary: the best story ever!
Review: Gone with the wind is one of those storys that wraps you up into the story waiting to find out what is going to happen next to Scarlett. Yet it is the most to deal on real life issues back in the 1860's and post civil war. Even if it is fictional.
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Summary: Amazing book
Review: I first read Gone With the Wind as a freshman in high school, and now 6 years later it's still one of my favorites. I have always loved the movie version, and the book is even better. Mitchell creates wonderful characters--you may not LIKE all of them, but they're amazing nonetheless. GWTW is just amazing southern lit...it may seem long, but trust me it flies by. If you like the movie then definitely read the book--you won't be disappointed.
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Summary: has nothing to do with "liking GANGSTAS" >:(
Review: A wonderful fascinating historical novel, an intriguing character study, and yes, of course, a tragic love story - this is one of 20th century masterpieces and a must-read for anyone.
And this doesn't mean that the characters of the book are perfect or their actions right - instead the imperfections of Scarlett, Rhett and others are what make the story work. Mitchel makes them so that anyone really can identify with them at some point, making the story very realistic and believable. No they are not perfect and their bad traits are not extolled or forgiven, as some reviewers here might think. Indeed, the events in the story reflect this point. (Why do u think Scarlett is left all alone in the end?) If anyone thinks that giving your daughter Gone with the Wind to read would make her think or behave like Scarlett at her worst they are very, very wrong and they just don't get the main idea of the novel.
Its so sad, frustrating, bittersweet and great and i love it. I very much recommend this book.
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