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3.44 AVERAGE
3.44 AVERAGE
Very satisfying. Weaves in and out of Scarlet’s story.
While many have said that this is a much better sequel than was Alexandra Ripley's Scarlett, I found it lacking in some areas of detail or believability. While it's true that southern society was rather close-knit and kinships twined throughout the southern states, it beggars belief at times just how many of Rhett's people are intimately involved with the plot of Gone With the Wind (yet somehow none of them were mentioned or even referenced in the original text). Those who are referenced in GWTW seem preternaturally connected...for example, Belle Watling is the daughter of the Butler overseer, but the Watlings came to the Low Country from Mundy Hollow, the same tiny mountain town that produced Archie, the ex-convict turned Confederate soldier whom, we learn, was once dedicated body and soul to Rhett Butler during and after the Franklin campaign...
The Rhett we see in this novel is a man ahead of his time in many ways...so many, in fact, that he at times comes off as a Gary Stu. He won't work enslaved Black servants on the family plantation, which is part of the "real" reason his father disowns him. The girl he ruined in Charleston turns out to be none other than Belle Watling, and there is no notorious carriage ride, nor does Rhett ever refer to her as a stupid fool he'd never want to marry. Moreover, Rhett and his sister Rosemary are never ashamed or even reluctant to keep company with Atlanta's most notorious madam. The Black man he kills for being "uppity to a lady" is his oldest friend, and the murder is really an act of mercy. McCaig goes out of his way to gloss over or forgive all of Rhett's darker traits from the original novel, rather than allowing him to be the morally ambiguous (or even occasionally "bad") person Mitchell created. Rhett Butler in this novel is definitely a product of the 21st century, not the 19th.
Besides the questionable salvation of Rhett's character, which I suspect would amuse him if he were real, there are several basic details present jn GWTW that McCaig outright gets wrong. Perhaps any one in and of itself is none too serious, but combined, they make the novel read as poorly researched and/or edited. Just a few examples: in GWTW, Scarlett often mentions that Ashley has dreamy grey eyes...McCaig gives him brown ones. We're told Charles Hamilton and his parents are buried in Atlanta, in the cemetery Sherman's men loot when they capture the town...McCaig has them buried in the Twelve Oaks burying ground, which the Wilkes family somehow still has access to after the plantation has gone for taxes. Scarlett has two aunts in Charleston, but only Eulalie Ward is ever mentioned here, and we never see her in the role of Rhett's mother's best friend. GWTW implies heavily that Rhett's sister, Rosemary, is unmarried and living with their parents after the war...McCaig has her married twice and never starved or beggared by Mr Butler's cruelty.
Perhaps my biggest complaint, however, is that this novel doesn't actually answer some of the lingering questions I (and I assume other readers) have about Rhett. Why does he join the army after years of sneering at the Cause? McCaig only says he realizes Scarlett can get herself to Tara and won't need him. We don't see Scarlett's miscarriage or Bonnie's death from his perspective at all. There's a time jump of over a year, and the only reference is in a letter Melanie writes to Rosemary from her deathbed (because of course Melly and Rhett's sister become penpals). Why does he leave Scarlett? Because he just doesn't care anymore. Many of the things I wanted to hear Rhett's version of simply don't materialise.
This isn't to say i hated it, or even disliked it. The book is generally well-written, the story entertaining if not believable, and I've read it more than once. There are some excellent additions to the saga from McCaig's work, such as Rhett's New Orleans ward being Belle's illegitimate son by one of Rhett's best friends from Charleston, and Tazewell Watling is probably my favorite character created by McCaig for this novel. Overall, I just want more from a GWTW sequel, and I've yet to get what I want.
The Rhett we see in this novel is a man ahead of his time in many ways...so many, in fact, that he at times comes off as a Gary Stu. He won't work enslaved Black servants on the family plantation, which is part of the "real" reason his father disowns him. The girl he ruined in Charleston turns out to be none other than Belle Watling, and there is no notorious carriage ride, nor does Rhett ever refer to her as a stupid fool he'd never want to marry. Moreover, Rhett and his sister Rosemary are never ashamed or even reluctant to keep company with Atlanta's most notorious madam. The Black man he kills for being "uppity to a lady" is his oldest friend, and the murder is really an act of mercy. McCaig goes out of his way to gloss over or forgive all of Rhett's darker traits from the original novel, rather than allowing him to be the morally ambiguous (or even occasionally "bad") person Mitchell created. Rhett Butler in this novel is definitely a product of the 21st century, not the 19th.
Besides the questionable salvation of Rhett's character, which I suspect would amuse him if he were real, there are several basic details present jn GWTW that McCaig outright gets wrong. Perhaps any one in and of itself is none too serious, but combined, they make the novel read as poorly researched and/or edited. Just a few examples: in GWTW, Scarlett often mentions that Ashley has dreamy grey eyes...McCaig gives him brown ones. We're told Charles Hamilton and his parents are buried in Atlanta, in the cemetery Sherman's men loot when they capture the town...McCaig has them buried in the Twelve Oaks burying ground, which the Wilkes family somehow still has access to after the plantation has gone for taxes. Scarlett has two aunts in Charleston, but only Eulalie Ward is ever mentioned here, and we never see her in the role of Rhett's mother's best friend. GWTW implies heavily that Rhett's sister, Rosemary, is unmarried and living with their parents after the war...McCaig has her married twice and never starved or beggared by Mr Butler's cruelty.
Perhaps my biggest complaint, however, is that this novel doesn't actually answer some of the lingering questions I (and I assume other readers) have about Rhett. Why does he join the army after years of sneering at the Cause? McCaig only says he realizes Scarlett can get herself to Tara and won't need him. We don't see Scarlett's miscarriage or Bonnie's death from his perspective at all. There's a time jump of over a year, and the only reference is in a letter Melanie writes to Rosemary from her deathbed (because of course Melly and Rhett's sister become penpals). Why does he leave Scarlett? Because he just doesn't care anymore. Many of the things I wanted to hear Rhett's version of simply don't materialise.
This isn't to say i hated it, or even disliked it. The book is generally well-written, the story entertaining if not believable, and I've read it more than once. There are some excellent additions to the saga from McCaig's work, such as Rhett's New Orleans ward being Belle's illegitimate son by one of Rhett's best friends from Charleston, and Tazewell Watling is probably my favorite character created by McCaig for this novel. Overall, I just want more from a GWTW sequel, and I've yet to get what I want.
This took me a while because I just didn't enjoy it. I feel like a book written as a companion to something as epic as Gone With the Wind should maybe know what happened in GWTW. I feel like there were so many contradictions between the two novels. Also, I really love Scarlett, the sequel to GWTW, that was sanctioned by Margaret Mitchell's family, so I had a difficult time with this author killing off people or completely changing personalities of people who are in both GWTW and Scarlett. Just did not enjoy it and will not be reading his book about Mammy.
Thoroughly OK. Not terrible, not great. I feel like Rhett was made out to be more of a good guy than the source material would make him out to be, and by overlooking or playing down his flaws the author missed an opportunity: one of the things that, to me, made Scarlett so compelling is partly because she has qualities that many would call unlikable (e.g. She is shrewd, is an indifferent mother), making her a more believable character for them. McCaig could have done the same with Rhett, but instead I felt he aggrandized him, almost like hero worship: many of Rhett's potential flaws are played as heroic or just normal reactions to the times. It was a decent read, but not worth going out of the way for.
Do not read any further if you don't want any spoilers and I apologize for the rant that follows...
Yes, I actually bought the book @ Costco because I couldn't wait for a library copy. So around the last third of the book, when the author described Ashley's eyes as brown I wanted my money back. Ashley's eyes are a drowsy gray I believe, not brown! Also can any true fan of GWTW imagine Belle Watling staying at Tara as an invited guest? I read Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley (and learned to live with parts of it) and with this book the ending is completely different than that book and Rhett's sister Rosemary has been completely rewritten. I thought this was going to be a prequel of sorts, with Rhett's background and his point of view of the storyline of GWTW. I can't believe this was authorized.
Yes, I actually bought the book @ Costco because I couldn't wait for a library copy. So around the last third of the book, when the author described Ashley's eyes as brown I wanted my money back. Ashley's eyes are a drowsy gray I believe, not brown! Also can any true fan of GWTW imagine Belle Watling staying at Tara as an invited guest? I read Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley (and learned to live with parts of it) and with this book the ending is completely different than that book and Rhett's sister Rosemary has been completely rewritten. I thought this was going to be a prequel of sorts, with Rhett's background and his point of view of the storyline of GWTW. I can't believe this was authorized.
This book is not poorly written, I suppose, but to consider it a prequel of Gone With the Wind is absurd. It's written in a completely different style and changed many of the characters nonsensically. It's like McCaig is trying to apologize for anything offensive in Gone With the Wind by making a book diametrically opposed to it. This is obviously a problem for any fans of the original novel. Complain what you will about Ripley's Scarlett, but that novel seemed more like a better attempt to be true to Mitchell's characters. The fact that both were authorized by the Mitchell estate makes it confounding that Rhett Butler's People pretends as if that novel does not exist. I didn't realize this would be the case and I was completely confused. I thought this novel was going to be the story from Rhett's point of view, not revisionist history. I wanted to enjoy it, yet I was angry after finishing it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
This book was painful to get through the first three quarters, and then suddenly fantastic for the last bit. Really hard to care about a bunch of rich white slaver problems, even though I could tell the point was supposed to show how much we shouldn't care about rich white slaver problems... but at the end of the day the story was still all about them. Once the book gets to after the Civil War and starts focusing more on Scarlett, Melly, Rosemary, and Belle the story becomes much more engaging and I couldn't put it down. I wish I could give this book a higher rating because I know I will be thinking about it for a long time, but I'm just not sure if I'll be thinking about it because it was actually good.
Why do I read junk like this? The Margaret Mitchell estate commissioned an author with experience writing pretty good civil war novels, and he produces a whiny, 2-dimensional story. Of course, Rhett Butler (like Mel Gibson in the Patriot) is the only white person in South Carolina who really _understands_ black men and their struggles, and is on their side while blockade running and hanging out in the Confederate artillery. Maybe we should just quit trying to make this story acceptable to 21st century people.
Not as good as Gone With the Wind, but a far better sequel than Scarlett. Rhett's back story fit well with the original and it was interesting to see how familiar events appear from a different perspective.