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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
read during high school chemistry. Listened to it on Audible 40 years later (Dec 2012). Still a good book.
I thought it was a very interesting novel that brought psychological insight upon character's lives during and after the American Civil War. This novel lasted from 1861 to 1876, from the bombing of Fort Sumter to the end of the Reconstruction Era. Scarlett O'Hara, a sixteen year-old southern belle, lives in a prosperous plantation ("Tara") in Confederate Georgia. She is frivolous, flirtatious, and spoiled as she has hundreds of servants at her whim and hundreds of boys infatuated with her charms. The one man she really loves, Ashley Wilkes, is getting married with Melanie Hamilton. To make him jealous, Scarlett disgustedly accepts Melanie's brother's hand in marriage. The Civil War destroys the utopian society she and the other wealthy planters once lived in--literally. Georgia is burned down by General Sherman of the Union Army, which destroys crops and homes. The naval blockade is leaving everyone poor--except for blockade runner Rhett Butler, a charming, suave, and observant man who falls in love with Scarlett. Scarlett works harder than she ever has in her life because all of the slaves escaped and resources are gone. The once-rich planters now live in poverty while the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War yields corruption with the Scalawags (ex-Confederates turning to Republicans to earn large sums of money) and Carpetbaggers (Northerners who go South to get a good share in power). Scarlett's struggle between virtue, morality, and survival juggles between the pages of this really good novel. I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in romance, the Civil War, and psychology.
Warning: If you DO NOT like to read long books, I would advise you to stay away from reading this one--it has 1448 pages.
Warning: If you DO NOT like to read long books, I would advise you to stay away from reading this one--it has 1448 pages.
Good book... but I'm going to need a lengthy grieving period.
It would have been five stars but I hated the ending. But I loved the book overall. The characters were so vivid, and the historical stuff very interesting. Epic book for sure. I had not ever read it before, and I'm glad I now have.
adventurous
hopeful
informative
mysterious
medium-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
Classic
Recently I joined a historical fiction book club on Facebook. It used the word discerning in the name. It stated that part of the group was going to do was to discuss or point out the historical errors in novels. Okay, so in my introduction post to the group, I wrote that Gone with the Wind was propaganda.
You would have thought I left dog poop in their cereal. The just fiction responses, including one who said that my clarification comment was too long (it was a short paragraph where I said I understood why people liked it and didn't think anything of anyone who did). Yet when another member called the moderator in because of the tone of the replies to my post, I was slapped on the hand as well.
In a discerning historical fiction group.
Here's the thing - I understand why people love GoWTW. I think I read like three times when I was in high school. I get it. I do. Several of my GR friends on here love it still, and I don't think anything about them. Mostly because they acknowledge the problematic issues of the novel. That Facebook group - nope.
GoWtW, both the movie and the book, has done so much to promote and keep in the minds of Americans the Romantic Old South. Scarlet's slaves stay with her after emancipation. The Klan is shown to be a good thing. All this, it is true, might be excused by the excuse "it is presented from a Southern woman's point of view" but that is undermined by the fact that the slaves stay and everyone, EVERYONE, seems to think the old ways (i.e. slavery) was better. But when was I pre -teen I read a Sunfire romance - historical romances for pre-teens - and one of those was told from the viewpoint of a Southern woman during the Civil War. She was not Scarlett and her plantation was not Tara. The former slaves left. Slavery was shown to be wrong. So it is possible to use that Southern woman's viewpoint and still acknowledge the hard truth.
It's not surprising because Mitchell was the product of DoC- Daughters of Confederacy and their miseducation campaign that reached into the Union states. There is a reason why they gave her an award.
The just fiction excuse to bypass the whole propaganda aspect of the novel is a weak one. I'm sorry but it is. Look, I don't think books should be banned. I think you should acknowledge what GoWTW is, but if you like the story aspect, than fine. But books are never just fiction. Fiction influences the way we look at things. It's the reason why some people want LGBTQIA books pulled. Once your child learns that LGBTQIA are people like everyone else, they will start asking pesky questions about all those other racist and sexist things you taught them. Studies have routinely proven that reading fiction makes a person more empathic. So, no, fiction isn't just fiction.
Historical fiction can be particularly dangerous because too often readers take the history presented in it as fact, no necessary making allowances for perspective (say Henry VIII swearing Anne of Cleves was a slut) or for choice (say Anne Boleyn sleeping with her brother in the Other Boleyn Girl). In some cases it might not matter much, Anne Boleyn and her offspring are long dead, but in other ways it does. Novels and stories that depicted all women as less than or sluts helped to keep women in what some saw as their proper place. Fictional tales about Africa allowed Europeans to their minds justify or excuse the colonization and enslavement of people. Fictional stories about Jewish citizens killing Christian babies to make bread - such as that which appears in Chaucer - are part of the reason why there was a Holocaust.
It can be little things as well. Heather Morris whose books about the Holocaust have gained much criticism not because of the bad style of writing, but because she blends reality and fiction too much. IT's a true story, but it isn't really. And the children of the people she writes about are still alive. Her manipulation of the truth can be seen as arbitrary - she excuses and downplays the bad behavior that some of her leads factually did for instance - but the people affected are still alive.
So of these points rest on the teacher using the text or the reader. For instance, if you are a teacher using the Boy in the Striped Pajamas to introduce your class to the Holocaust, you better make sure you point out the fable aspect of the novel and the inaccuracies. In the UK, a study relieved the British students believed that the novel truly showed what the camps were like and what the Germans knew.
There is a reason why that Chaucer tale about the child saint isn't taught until college.
Today, in America, you have politicians who can't even bring themselves to acknowledge that slavery was the reason for the Civil War because of the work of the DoC and because of the romance of the Old South Myth. A myth that GoWtW continues.
Too often on Facebook, in one historical fiction group or even in a general reader's group, I will see someone ask for books about the Civil War and the first response will be Gone with the Wind. It shouldn't be the first. And quite frankly, if you are going to suggest it, you should pair with The Wind Done Gone, say. The fact that this book is still first in Civil War reading for many people points to its power in upholding a myth that should have been laid to rest a long time ago.
You would have thought I left dog poop in their cereal. The just fiction responses, including one who said that my clarification comment was too long (it was a short paragraph where I said I understood why people liked it and didn't think anything of anyone who did). Yet when another member called the moderator in because of the tone of the replies to my post, I was slapped on the hand as well.
In a discerning historical fiction group.
Here's the thing - I understand why people love GoWTW. I think I read like three times when I was in high school. I get it. I do. Several of my GR friends on here love it still, and I don't think anything about them. Mostly because they acknowledge the problematic issues of the novel. That Facebook group - nope.
GoWtW, both the movie and the book, has done so much to promote and keep in the minds of Americans the Romantic Old South. Scarlet's slaves stay with her after emancipation. The Klan is shown to be a good thing. All this, it is true, might be excused by the excuse "it is presented from a Southern woman's point of view" but that is undermined by the fact that the slaves stay and everyone, EVERYONE, seems to think the old ways (i.e. slavery) was better. But when was I pre -teen I read a Sunfire romance - historical romances for pre-teens - and one of those was told from the viewpoint of a Southern woman during the Civil War. She was not Scarlett and her plantation was not Tara. The former slaves left. Slavery was shown to be wrong. So it is possible to use that Southern woman's viewpoint and still acknowledge the hard truth.
It's not surprising because Mitchell was the product of DoC- Daughters of Confederacy and their miseducation campaign that reached into the Union states. There is a reason why they gave her an award.
The just fiction excuse to bypass the whole propaganda aspect of the novel is a weak one. I'm sorry but it is. Look, I don't think books should be banned. I think you should acknowledge what GoWTW is, but if you like the story aspect, than fine. But books are never just fiction. Fiction influences the way we look at things. It's the reason why some people want LGBTQIA books pulled. Once your child learns that LGBTQIA are people like everyone else, they will start asking pesky questions about all those other racist and sexist things you taught them. Studies have routinely proven that reading fiction makes a person more empathic. So, no, fiction isn't just fiction.
Historical fiction can be particularly dangerous because too often readers take the history presented in it as fact, no necessary making allowances for perspective (say Henry VIII swearing Anne of Cleves was a slut) or for choice (say Anne Boleyn sleeping with her brother in the Other Boleyn Girl). In some cases it might not matter much, Anne Boleyn and her offspring are long dead, but in other ways it does. Novels and stories that depicted all women as less than or sluts helped to keep women in what some saw as their proper place. Fictional tales about Africa allowed Europeans to their minds justify or excuse the colonization and enslavement of people. Fictional stories about Jewish citizens killing Christian babies to make bread - such as that which appears in Chaucer - are part of the reason why there was a Holocaust.
It can be little things as well. Heather Morris whose books about the Holocaust have gained much criticism not because of the bad style of writing, but because she blends reality and fiction too much. IT's a true story, but it isn't really. And the children of the people she writes about are still alive. Her manipulation of the truth can be seen as arbitrary - she excuses and downplays the bad behavior that some of her leads factually did for instance - but the people affected are still alive.
So of these points rest on the teacher using the text or the reader. For instance, if you are a teacher using the Boy in the Striped Pajamas to introduce your class to the Holocaust, you better make sure you point out the fable aspect of the novel and the inaccuracies. In the UK, a study relieved the British students believed that the novel truly showed what the camps were like and what the Germans knew.
There is a reason why that Chaucer tale about the child saint isn't taught until college.
Today, in America, you have politicians who can't even bring themselves to acknowledge that slavery was the reason for the Civil War because of the work of the DoC and because of the romance of the Old South Myth. A myth that GoWtW continues.
Too often on Facebook, in one historical fiction group or even in a general reader's group, I will see someone ask for books about the Civil War and the first response will be Gone with the Wind. It shouldn't be the first. And quite frankly, if you are going to suggest it, you should pair with The Wind Done Gone, say. The fact that this book is still first in Civil War reading for many people points to its power in upholding a myth that should have been laid to rest a long time ago.
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I dreaded reading this book for so long because it's one of my most disliked genres; however, once I started reading it I was immediately hooked. I devoured it and it's certainly a favorite!!