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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
adventurous
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Minor: Cursing
Definitely for adults. There are other bad things too but I'm not sure how to put it into words...
I had watched the movie back when I was a teenager, and I never truly appreciated how great of a story it was since I had never read the book in my entire life. Until this spring, about a month ago, I picked it up unwillingly and began to read. I was on page one hundred and something that I felt a strong admiration for its writing style, the character development, and I, surprisingly, liked Scarlett. There were a couple of times when I knew I should have disliked her for so many reasons, but I never could, because we were so much alike in so many ways.
Scarlett O'Hara is beautiful, and that's what the author makes sure to remind you every now and then throughout the book, but that's not all. She is so much more than that. She is hasty, clever, argumentative, full of life, hope, and self-confidence. She is not the kind-hearted and calm heroine you find in classics, but quite the opposite. However, one thing she knows for sure is how much she loves Ashley Wilkes, "the Perfect Knight", in the mind of Scarlett, even throughout her three marriages. "She loved him and wanted him and did not understand him."
Ashley's character is certainly the most inept and incomprehensible for me. He is in love with his wife but wants Scarlett as well. He insists to do what a nobleman does, but he talks nonsense about it whenever it comes to being a good human. I thought about him a lot, and I understand how sad it made him, it is a war we are talking about after all. He must have been going mad when he thought about the life he used to have, and I feel for him, I do. But that is no excuse for a person to be this deceptive and insincere. He calls himself a kind of a dreamer and he thinks he's doing what is right, but what he is - in my idea - is a person who wastes the pure love he is receiving from Melanie and the passionate attention from Scarlett. Altogether, he is weak and lost in a life that is not unlike a war, and he keeps drowning.
And then we have Melanie (Hamilton) Wilkes, so humble, serene, and gracious. As Rhett Butler says, "She never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart." and that's the best description. She is too good for this world, or why not say, she is too much.
Rhett Butler, the one character I think about a lot. The man who I did not like at the beginning, but started to admire when I was one step closer to understanding him. And through the last few pages, I knew how deeply I loved this man, and how much I still truly disliked him! The thing is that both Rhett and Scarlett were too proud to let themselves free from the cruel destiny awaiting them. They were both stupid in marriage, and more stupid in love. But who isn't? So who am I to judge anyway.
Slavery in Gone with the Wind is written from the perspective and values of the slaveholder and tends to present slaves as docile and happy. It was annoying all along, and I kept trying not to get angry at how stupidly it was explained.
There are a few other things left to write because I do not want to forget my current feelings about this book. First is how lovely and heartwarming it was when Scarlett always believed in tomorrow. "I'll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day." "I can't think about that right now. I'll think of it tomorrow, at Tara." and I tend to believe this, that tomorrow is another day, and I still have the chance.
Then, there's love. The last few pages of the book were a lot to handle, and I doubt I can ever forget the feeling of regret and heartache when it was about to end. Rhett's last words and Scarlett's thoughts are still ringing in my ears and I felt sorry for the lost time. How can one ever know what the smallest actions or words can do to people? How could Scarlett know about it all when she was never faced with anything as gentle as that? It was neither of their faults. They just never knew how to love, how to show it, and how to be kind. It is sad that I knew if Scarlett was a bit kinder and Rhett a bit calmer, everything would have been different. But that's life, isn't it? We're born to make mistakes and either learn or forget. I hope at least, this book changes me into a kinder person.
It deserves more than five stars. I did love it.
Scarlett O'Hara is beautiful, and that's what the author makes sure to remind you every now and then throughout the book, but that's not all. She is so much more than that. She is hasty, clever, argumentative, full of life, hope, and self-confidence. She is not the kind-hearted and calm heroine you find in classics, but quite the opposite. However, one thing she knows for sure is how much she loves Ashley Wilkes, "the Perfect Knight", in the mind of Scarlett, even throughout her three marriages. "She loved him and wanted him and did not understand him."
Ashley's character is certainly the most inept and incomprehensible for me. He is in love with his wife but wants Scarlett as well. He insists to do what a nobleman does, but he talks nonsense about it whenever it comes to being a good human. I thought about him a lot, and I understand how sad it made him, it is a war we are talking about after all. He must have been going mad when he thought about the life he used to have, and I feel for him, I do. But that is no excuse for a person to be this deceptive and insincere. He calls himself a kind of a dreamer and he thinks he's doing what is right, but what he is - in my idea - is a person who wastes the pure love he is receiving from Melanie and the passionate attention from Scarlett. Altogether, he is weak and lost in a life that is not unlike a war, and he keeps drowning.
And then we have Melanie (Hamilton) Wilkes, so humble, serene, and gracious. As Rhett Butler says, "She never had any strength. She's never had anything but heart." and that's the best description. She is too good for this world, or why not say, she is too much.
Rhett Butler, the one character I think about a lot. The man who I did not like at the beginning, but started to admire when I was one step closer to understanding him. And through the last few pages, I knew how deeply I loved this man, and how much I still truly disliked him! The thing is that both Rhett and Scarlett were too proud to let themselves free from the cruel destiny awaiting them. They were both stupid in marriage, and more stupid in love. But who isn't? So who am I to judge anyway.
Slavery in Gone with the Wind is written from the perspective and values of the slaveholder and tends to present slaves as docile and happy. It was annoying all along, and I kept trying not to get angry at how stupidly it was explained.
There are a few other things left to write because I do not want to forget my current feelings about this book. First is how lovely and heartwarming it was when Scarlett always believed in tomorrow. "I'll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day." "I can't think about that right now. I'll think of it tomorrow, at Tara." and I tend to believe this, that tomorrow is another day, and I still have the chance.
Then, there's love. The last few pages of the book were a lot to handle, and I doubt I can ever forget the feeling of regret and heartache when it was about to end. Rhett's last words and Scarlett's thoughts are still ringing in my ears and I felt sorry for the lost time. How can one ever know what the smallest actions or words can do to people? How could Scarlett know about it all when she was never faced with anything as gentle as that? It was neither of their faults. They just never knew how to love, how to show it, and how to be kind. It is sad that I knew if Scarlett was a bit kinder and Rhett a bit calmer, everything would have been different. But that's life, isn't it? We're born to make mistakes and either learn or forget. I hope at least, this book changes me into a kinder person.
It deserves more than five stars. I did love it.
After spending much of my February vacation and nearly twenty hours reading Gone With the Wind, I have decided that it is one of the greatest works of art. Ever.
The masterpiece Mitchell has created is beyond explanation, but I will try my best. First, the picture Mitchell creates of the south is remarkable. From the comfortable, easy lifestyle before the war, complete with parties, lush country-side, and thriving plantations; to the chaos of the Civil War, the heartbreak of death, and the love for the Cause; to the helplessness of Reconstruction, the reader is shown not what history books tell of the Civil War, not what we think, but what the south thinks. Gone With the Wind provides insight not only into the history, but into the raw emotion felt by the south. Heartbreak, anger, and downright hatred toward the Yankees are shown through Mitchell's masterful writing. And if that wasn't enough, her characters are genius.
Scarlett O'Hara is arguably the most hated protagonist of all-time. She is vain, selfish, and is willing to do anything to get what she wants. Through every one of the thousand pages, the reader never feels sympathy for her. To create a main character with only one redeeming quality (her "gumption") seems crazy, but Mitchell makes it work. And she makes it work well. The reader continues to turn the pages to see if Scarlett changes, to see if she finally gets together with Ashley. But the end of the book provides little closure. After she finally decides that she loves Rhett, he delivers his famous line: "My dear, I don't give a damn". This shatters all hopes for a happy ending, and the reader is left with a sense of despair. The book, while being a fantastic story, is deeply depressing and hopeless.
But the fact that I continued to turn the pages and was deeply enthralled in the book makes up for the depressing ending. In fact, the ending helps makes the meaning of the book stick. The book, which might seem like it is above the Civil War, or about Scarlett's romances, is really about how the southern way of life is swept away by the Civil War, and how it is now gone (with the wind). A story with this theme cannot help have a depressing ending. And it helps make it the best book I have ever read.
The masterpiece Mitchell has created is beyond explanation, but I will try my best. First, the picture Mitchell creates of the south is remarkable. From the comfortable, easy lifestyle before the war, complete with parties, lush country-side, and thriving plantations; to the chaos of the Civil War, the heartbreak of death, and the love for the Cause; to the helplessness of Reconstruction, the reader is shown not what history books tell of the Civil War, not what we think, but what the south thinks. Gone With the Wind provides insight not only into the history, but into the raw emotion felt by the south. Heartbreak, anger, and downright hatred toward the Yankees are shown through Mitchell's masterful writing. And if that wasn't enough, her characters are genius.
Scarlett O'Hara is arguably the most hated protagonist of all-time. She is vain, selfish, and is willing to do anything to get what she wants. Through every one of the thousand pages, the reader never feels sympathy for her. To create a main character with only one redeeming quality (her "gumption") seems crazy, but Mitchell makes it work. And she makes it work well. The reader continues to turn the pages to see if Scarlett changes, to see if she finally gets together with Ashley. But the end of the book provides little closure. After she finally decides that she loves Rhett, he delivers his famous line: "My dear, I don't give a damn". This shatters all hopes for a happy ending, and the reader is left with a sense of despair. The book, while being a fantastic story, is deeply depressing and hopeless.
But the fact that I continued to turn the pages and was deeply enthralled in the book makes up for the depressing ending. In fact, the ending helps makes the meaning of the book stick. The book, which might seem like it is above the Civil War, or about Scarlett's romances, is really about how the southern way of life is swept away by the Civil War, and how it is now gone (with the wind). A story with this theme cannot help have a depressing ending. And it helps make it the best book I have ever read.
Ho letto questo libro avendo un punto di vista privilegiato: non ho mai visto il film è non conoscevo niente della trama escluso il “francamente me ne infischio” e “domani è un altro giorno”.
Battute talmente iconiche che anche chi come me
Ha sempre considerato il film una pappina troppo mielosa è obbligato a conoscere.
Ho quindi affrontato queste 1200 pagine non sapendo cosa ci avrei trovato dentro, aspettandomi una specie di romanzo rosa con ambientazione storica.
Niente di più sbagliato.
Non ha senso in una recensione di classico come questo discutere della trama, invece ottimo lavoro per la nuova traduzione fatta da Neri pozza e molto apprezzata la nota iniziale dove si spiegavano le scelte fatte delle traduttrici.
Purtroppo il “perdindirindina” e “o signore benedetto” mi hanno comunque infastidita a morte, ma confrontarsi con un colosso popolare come via col vento eliminando tutto ciò che lo ha reso iconico non era possibile.
Nel complesso lavoro notevole della casa editrice che come sempre rimane una sicurezza.
Battute talmente iconiche che anche chi come me
Ha sempre considerato il film una pappina troppo mielosa è obbligato a conoscere.
Ho quindi affrontato queste 1200 pagine non sapendo cosa ci avrei trovato dentro, aspettandomi una specie di romanzo rosa con ambientazione storica.
Niente di più sbagliato.
Non ha senso in una recensione di classico come questo discutere della trama, invece ottimo lavoro per la nuova traduzione fatta da Neri pozza e molto apprezzata la nota iniziale dove si spiegavano le scelte fatte delle traduttrici.
Purtroppo il “perdindirindina” e “o signore benedetto” mi hanno comunque infastidita a morte, ma confrontarsi con un colosso popolare come via col vento eliminando tutto ciò che lo ha reso iconico non era possibile.
Nel complesso lavoro notevole della casa editrice che come sempre rimane una sicurezza.
TLDR: If you read this book before graduating college, and you are now over the age of 25 (when the prefrontal cortex has fully formed) and it's been at least five years since you last read it, and you remember this being a great book or even a good book, I urge you to give it another read and see if your opinion has changed.
I first read Gone with the Wind the summer after my senior year of high school, and I loved it dearly. For three days, I did nothing but eat, sleep, and read Gone with the Wind. I literally cried during the entire last hundred pages of the book because I knew what was coming having seen the movie three or four times by then. It had been a favorite of my grandmother's so we watched it every time it was broadcast on network television from the time I was seven or eight years old, and rented it from the local video store at least once.
It has taken me over two decades to reread the novel, both because of the length and because of how emotionally taxing (in the best way possible) the novel had been for me the first time around. Now that I've finished my second read of the novel, I'm dumbfounded at how I could have read it at any point in my life without feeling repulsed at the horrific racism. It is as though my fresh out of high school self read an abridged version of the novel, one where the most racist parts were left out—only I didn't. My copy was 1,036 pages and I read every single word.
Somehow, despite receiving an education from top rated public schools, in one of the most liberal states in the country, in one of the most liberal cities in that state, having been taught about racism both past and present, I was blind to some of the worst racism in this book. It's not that I was completely naive to all of it. When recommending the book to others, something I feel deep shame and embarrassment about now, I always caveated my recommendation by warning people the book was more racist than the movie, and that it's a good book if you can get past the racism. But unless you're oblivious to a large chunk of the racism, which I clearly was, there is no way to ignore it. The book is saturated in it. It is in every fiber of every character, the good ones as well as the bad. There were several points where I had to put the book down because I was so angry by what I was reading, and I felt physically sickened. Neither the compelling (though deeply toxic and abusive) romance or the complex characters can make up for Mitchell's revolting depiction of black people, Native Americans, slavery, the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, or Reconstruction.
This is not a good book let alone a great one. It's deeply troubling that it was as popular as it was when it was first published in 1936, that it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, and that it remains so popular today. I'm embarrassed that I ever considered it to be one of my favorite books of all time, second only to Pride and Prejudice, which I've read six or seven times since high school and, thankfully, has held up (go read that one if you want great romance and compelling characters). If you haven't read this book, please spare yourself.
I first read Gone with the Wind the summer after my senior year of high school, and I loved it dearly. For three days, I did nothing but eat, sleep, and read Gone with the Wind. I literally cried during the entire last hundred pages of the book because I knew what was coming having seen the movie three or four times by then. It had been a favorite of my grandmother's so we watched it every time it was broadcast on network television from the time I was seven or eight years old, and rented it from the local video store at least once.
It has taken me over two decades to reread the novel, both because of the length and because of how emotionally taxing (in the best way possible) the novel had been for me the first time around. Now that I've finished my second read of the novel, I'm dumbfounded at how I could have read it at any point in my life without feeling repulsed at the horrific racism. It is as though my fresh out of high school self read an abridged version of the novel, one where the most racist parts were left out—only I didn't. My copy was 1,036 pages and I read every single word.
Somehow, despite receiving an education from top rated public schools, in one of the most liberal states in the country, in one of the most liberal cities in that state, having been taught about racism both past and present, I was blind to some of the worst racism in this book. It's not that I was completely naive to all of it. When recommending the book to others, something I feel deep shame and embarrassment about now, I always caveated my recommendation by warning people the book was more racist than the movie, and that it's a good book if you can get past the racism. But unless you're oblivious to a large chunk of the racism, which I clearly was, there is no way to ignore it. The book is saturated in it. It is in every fiber of every character, the good ones as well as the bad. There were several points where I had to put the book down because I was so angry by what I was reading, and I felt physically sickened. Neither the compelling (though deeply toxic and abusive) romance or the complex characters can make up for Mitchell's revolting depiction of black people, Native Americans, slavery, the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, or Reconstruction.
This is not a good book let alone a great one. It's deeply troubling that it was as popular as it was when it was first published in 1936, that it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, and that it remains so popular today. I'm embarrassed that I ever considered it to be one of my favorite books of all time, second only to Pride and Prejudice, which I've read six or seven times since high school and, thankfully, has held up (go read that one if you want great romance and compelling characters). If you haven't read this book, please spare yourself.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book didn't quite live up to my expectations. Gone With the Wind is supposedly classic romance, but I didn't find it romantic at all. Instead of a love story, I read a story about a selfish, stubborn, mean-spirited woman! It was an interesting story, and it had it's redeeming qualities, but overall, I was disappointed.
adventurous
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The all-time best. And that ending???? Nothing can top that ending.