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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Finally finished this “must read classic” and I must say it was better than I expected but my god, I have never loathed a main character so much. Scarlet O’Hara is a truly horrible person and in the end, she still never truly sees the error of her ways.
Reasons I Recommend:
1) Historical aspect and interest in the American Civil War (I don’t really care for American history but seeing the side of the Confederates was interesting)
2) Melly — the kindest person ever to exist and
3) Rhett. He is an amazing character with so much charisma and passion and to watch him fall in love with Scarlet and finally get everything he ever wanted only to lose it all because of her selfishness was heartbreaking. Rhett Butler deserved better
⭐️⭐️⭐️
#briereads #goodreads #bookworm #lovetoread #idratherbereading #2022goodreadsreadingchallenge #historicalfiction #historicalromance #classicliterature #margaretmitchell #gonewiththewind
Reasons I Recommend:
1) Historical aspect and interest in the American Civil War (I don’t really care for American history but seeing the side of the Confederates was interesting)
2) Melly — the kindest person ever to exist and
3) Rhett. He is an amazing character with so much charisma and passion and to watch him fall in love with Scarlet and finally get everything he ever wanted only to lose it all because of her selfishness was heartbreaking. Rhett Butler deserved better
⭐️⭐️⭐️
#briereads #goodreads #bookworm #lovetoread #idratherbereading #2022goodreadsreadingchallenge #historicalfiction #historicalromance #classicliterature #margaretmitchell #gonewiththewind
adventurous
challenging
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I did it! I have finally achieved my goal of reading Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell! My edition was a whopping 1,048 pages, making this the longest book I have ever read.
Staying quite faithful to the book, the movie is a excellent adaptation. The book is much darker and less sanitized. The n-word is used constantly. The racial tensions and conflicts are more pronounced, and there are even characters with associations to the KKK — quite jarring to read!
It's hard to believe but Scarlett O'Hara is even more spoiled, selfish and insufferable in the book! You learn more about her thoughts and feelings, some that are downright venomous. Despite her faults, I was still drawn to her and somehow sympathized with her at times.
The storylines and the characters are way better developed. As much as I love the movie, I enjoyed the book even more. I highly recommend!
Staying quite faithful to the book, the movie is a excellent adaptation. The book is much darker and less sanitized. The n-word is used constantly. The racial tensions and conflicts are more pronounced, and there are even characters with associations to the KKK — quite jarring to read!
It's hard to believe but Scarlett O'Hara is even more spoiled, selfish and insufferable in the book! You learn more about her thoughts and feelings, some that are downright venomous. Despite her faults, I was still drawn to her and somehow sympathized with her at times.
The storylines and the characters are way better developed. As much as I love the movie, I enjoyed the book even more. I highly recommend!
Do you like period dramas/historical fiction, but have no interest or attention span for epic novels? I was there with you, until I read this 1,000-page novel that gripped me and pulled me away into the world of our mindblowingly awesome protagonist, Scarlett O'Hara. I love a bad lady. I love lifelike characters. I love Civil War-set books. I can't find fault in this book, but I can say that if you really hate long books or the thought of a female protagonist who really is a b**** annoys you (and why should it?), you won't like this. But that's about the only person to whom I won't recommend this book.
challenging
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Like many, I first watched the film before picking up the book. However, it's been 25 years between watching and reading and in the years between I earned a graduate degree in English, which gave me the opportunity to study feminism, Marxism, regional literature and post-colonialism. This made me a lot more aware of the treatment of gender, economics/class, depictions of both the North and the south and the depiction of slaves and slave owners (as well as freed slaves and white non-slave owners).
This novel is not a romance. It's much more complicated than that. And this novel has a richness about it that prevents me from tossing it for its glaring prejudices.
Gone with the Wind contain a lot of information about how the South represents itself. It's not a simple apologist view for why the South was wronged by the North. Nope. In the first half of the novel (Ft. Sumner to the burning of Atlanta), Mitchell has several characters describe and analyze the relationship between the North and South in the war. It's not comprehensive, but it's more nuanced than I expected from an woman from Atlanta writing the novel from 1925 to 1935.
As a teen, I thought this novel was a love triangle with Scarlett caught between two men--a Southern gentleman and a scalawag. While reading the novel, I can see that these two men function like symbols for the Old South and the New South. Ashley is rural, decorous, intellectual, artistic, diplomatic and a bit effeminate. Rhett is urban, blunt, practical, crass, aggressive and possessing an animal magnetism. Scarlett dreams of possessing the Old South by dreaming of possessing Ashley, but she keeps going to Rhett to get resources in order to survive her immediate challenges.
The book also has a broader landscape than these three. It has a lot of detail in the early chapters about the textile industry. I thought this was just the choice of the movie makers to have elaborate costumes, linens, drapes and upholstery. No. All this detail and more is described richly in the novel. Also the battle scenes and strategies are described in detail. And the social circles of Atlanta get a lot of attention as well.
Another richness is the diversity of depiction of women from various walks of life--white and black, upper class, working class, and the underclass. Now that I'm older, I can see how the novel shows younger women all the various ways a woman can function in society (at least Civil War Era Georgia): debutante, widow, old maid, devoted mother, mammy, high society ladies, business women, prostitutes, ravished women, house servants, women who do charity work, women of leisure and so on.
In some ways, the novel can be read as a big circle with Scarlett being raised by her mother and black mammy and then supported by them and by Melanie as the three moral compasses throughout the novel. And when Scarlett fails to maintain a relationship with a male (dad dead, Charles dead, Frank dead, Ashley proven unfit, Rhett leaving her), the end of the novel has her thinking of her mother and her mammy and of Melanie's goodness. It's a bit maddening to see the "good girls" work tirelessly with no fanfare while Scarlett gets all their physical labor and emotional labor. So Scarlett gets to have her cake and eat it too. (The heroine is more "earthy" than the others and then end up the saint based on these mother-saint figures' love and sacrifice for her.)
Anyway, I imagined this novel as being great material for multiple book-length critiques--and I'm sure those exist. I just haven't looked for them yet. So I will stop my dissertation-length review and end with: WOW! So much richer than I imagined (but I'm still a bit disturbed by the sexism, bigotry and class-ism of the novel).
This novel is not a romance. It's much more complicated than that. And this novel has a richness about it that prevents me from tossing it for its glaring prejudices.
Gone with the Wind contain a lot of information about how the South represents itself. It's not a simple apologist view for why the South was wronged by the North. Nope. In the first half of the novel (Ft. Sumner to the burning of Atlanta), Mitchell has several characters describe and analyze the relationship between the North and South in the war. It's not comprehensive, but it's more nuanced than I expected from an woman from Atlanta writing the novel from 1925 to 1935.
As a teen, I thought this novel was a love triangle with Scarlett caught between two men--a Southern gentleman and a scalawag. While reading the novel, I can see that these two men function like symbols for the Old South and the New South. Ashley is rural, decorous, intellectual, artistic, diplomatic and a bit effeminate. Rhett is urban, blunt, practical, crass, aggressive and possessing an animal magnetism. Scarlett dreams of possessing the Old South by dreaming of possessing Ashley, but she keeps going to Rhett to get resources in order to survive her immediate challenges.
The book also has a broader landscape than these three. It has a lot of detail in the early chapters about the textile industry. I thought this was just the choice of the movie makers to have elaborate costumes, linens, drapes and upholstery. No. All this detail and more is described richly in the novel. Also the battle scenes and strategies are described in detail. And the social circles of Atlanta get a lot of attention as well.
Another richness is the diversity of depiction of women from various walks of life--white and black, upper class, working class, and the underclass. Now that I'm older, I can see how the novel shows younger women all the various ways a woman can function in society (at least Civil War Era Georgia): debutante, widow, old maid, devoted mother, mammy, high society ladies, business women, prostitutes, ravished women, house servants, women who do charity work, women of leisure and so on.
In some ways, the novel can be read as a big circle with Scarlett being raised by her mother and black mammy and then supported by them and by Melanie as the three moral compasses throughout the novel. And when Scarlett fails to maintain a relationship with a male (dad dead, Charles dead, Frank dead, Ashley proven unfit, Rhett leaving her), the end of the novel has her thinking of her mother and her mammy and of Melanie's goodness. It's a bit maddening to see the "good girls" work tirelessly with no fanfare while Scarlett gets all their physical labor and emotional labor. So Scarlett gets to have her cake and eat it too. (The heroine is more "earthy" than the others and then end up the saint based on these mother-saint figures' love and sacrifice for her.)
Anyway, I imagined this novel as being great material for multiple book-length critiques--and I'm sure those exist. I just haven't looked for them yet. So I will stop my dissertation-length review and end with: WOW! So much richer than I imagined (but I'm still a bit disturbed by the sexism, bigotry and class-ism of the novel).
The Dixie War and Peace.
The writer didn't quite like Scarlet.
Butler's behaviour was inconsistent and his metamorphosis so artificial.
The final episode was quite pathetic.
You never stop thinking it's all so melodramatic because it's a woman's book.
Heh, women never know what they want.
With novels this long you get a natural question:
How does the author decide it's time to finish?
The writer didn't quite like Scarlet.
Butler's behaviour was inconsistent and his metamorphosis so artificial.
The final episode was quite pathetic.
You never stop thinking it's all so melodramatic because it's a woman's book.
Heh, women never know what they want.
With novels this long you get a natural question:
How does the author decide it's time to finish?