Book #21: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

I've been wanting to read this book for AGES. I stole it from my parents' house probably three or four years ago and never actually got around to reading it until this week. I can't believe I waited this long!

The main reason I shied away from it for so long was because of its bulk, of course. It's over 1,000 pages. But it took me fewer days to read this one than Connecticut Yankee did, because I was SO much more interested in this one. I started it on Wednesday and have spent a few hours reading each day since then.

First off, I loved it. The story is awesome. I've seen the movie once, and it pretty much includes EVERYTHING from the book. But the background and internal conflict/thoughts you get in the book is SO much more involving than in the movie. I still did not like Scarlett, at all, even after reading the book, but you can't help being fascinated with her and rooting for her, even as you hate her. (Except for the whole Ashley situation--that just MAKES ME SO MAD.) I love how Mitchell really creates the world of the Southerners and helps you to understand where they were coming from, how they felt about the war, and all that stuff. It's all so foreign and old-fashioned to us, but I felt like she did an excellent job of getting the reader into that.

As a part of that, it's so interesting how the book is so not-self-conscious about the racism and sexism in it, since it was written in the 1930s. The freed slaves in Georgia are really seen as a totally different species, almost. And Mitchell definitely portrays the institution of slavery (and the whole Southern culture) as being so romantic and perfect. All the slaveowners love their slaves and treat them like family, which is so counter to usual slavery portrayals you read in books.

I really did get into the whole book. I kept explaining how interesting it all was to Tommy and talking about parts of the book with him all weekend long. I just cannot get over HOW much I hate Scarlett for trying to steal Ashley from Melanie all the time, and how obnoxious it is that Melanie never believes that Scarlett's trying to do it. And there are ALWAYS people telling Scarlett how lame Ashley is or how dissimilar they are, and she just always replies with, "You don't know anything about him! You aren't worth to wipe his shoes!" and it's SO OBVIOUS that she's stupidly wrong. But it's still awful at the end that Rhett leaves her--you want her to be happy with him because that's what HE'S wanted all along. But I'm still glad he leaves--she needs to be taught a lesson. I think in the END they should get back together, though. In a decade or so.

Also, I wonder if they re-made the movie nowadays, how it would be different. What parts of the book would they leave out? Because they didn't leave ANYTHING out of the book for the 1939 movie--the entire plot is in there. They would never do that in Hollywood today. I'm really interested to see what stuff they would leave out and include--but I don't know if they'll ever re-make it, since it's still the most popular movie of all time.