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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
DNF at 77%. I listened to 38 hours of this audiobook and now I need botox to get rid of my frown lines.
Scarlett is manipulative, hateful, bigoted, "shallow and shrewd", and racism and hypocrisy are rampant. I hoped this was satirical or attempting an accurate representation of racial views of Southern whites during and after the civil war, but the slaves and freed Black folks are depicted as monsters, or at best loyal idiots who call themselves Confederates, and it gets worse as the book goes on. I know this was written in the '30s but there is no way the author could have encountered a Black person even once in her life and written them all this way.
I just couldn't listen to one more cringe-inducing second.
Scarlett is manipulative, hateful, bigoted, "shallow and shrewd", and racism and hypocrisy are rampant. I hoped this was satirical or attempting an accurate representation of racial views of Southern whites during and after the civil war, but the slaves and freed Black folks are depicted as monsters, or at best loyal idiots who call themselves Confederates, and it gets worse as the book goes on. I know this was written in the '30s but there is no way the author could have encountered a Black person even once in her life and written them all this way.
I just couldn't listen to one more cringe-inducing second.
This is easily one of my favorite books of all time. I read it in seventh grade after seeing the film (also one of my favorites). I try to reread it every year. I adore Scarlett as a heroine (sure, she might do some bad things but her reasoning is brilliant). I love lovely Melanie--some people say you're either a Scarlett or a Melanie. And Rhett?
Oh Rhett.
Much love for him. Much love. Tragic. Beautiful. Moving.
It's the best.
Rereading again in January 2018. I laughed. I cried. I understood things I hadn't before. I'm still in awe.
Oh Rhett.
Much love for him. Much love. Tragic. Beautiful. Moving.
It's the best.
Rereading again in January 2018. I laughed. I cried. I understood things I hadn't before. I'm still in awe.
I had such a love/hate feeling toward Scarlett. Sometimes I admired her for her "gumption" but other times it was just frustrating to see that she was so blind about love and relationships.
I watched this movie a lot growing up and have read the book a few times so this novel will always have sentimental value to me because I could quote it before I ever cracked the spine in middle school.
That being said, the last two hundred pages are always agony to get through and although no other ending would be fitting for such characters, I will never stop wishing Scarlett and Rhett weren't so selfish and messed up and that they all live happily ever after. And that's probably one of the reasons it's a Pulitzer winner. To love and loathe them, for 1300 pages to relatively breeze by with arguably some of American's most memorable literary characters up against the backdrop of the Civil War is impressive. Additionally so because it holds up in spite of the racism, revisionist history and the sexism. This book is epic.
That being said, the last two hundred pages are always agony to get through and although no other ending would be fitting for such characters, I will never stop wishing Scarlett and Rhett weren't so selfish and messed up and that they all live happily ever after. And that's probably one of the reasons it's a Pulitzer winner. To love and loathe them, for 1300 pages to relatively breeze by with arguably some of American's most memorable literary characters up against the backdrop of the Civil War is impressive. Additionally so because it holds up in spite of the racism, revisionist history and the sexism. This book is epic.
One day I will be emotionally stable enough to write a clear and concise review of how beautiful this book is. Today is not that day because the ending destroyed me.
https://lolantaczyta.wordpress.com/2015/04/18/przeminelo-z-wiatrem-margaret-mitchell/
I did not set out to listen to this once again. I just wanted to check a passage at the very beginning of the book, and so I decided to listen to that point. Probably about 150 pages in. I got sucked in to this story ONCE AGAIN.
My eyes and ears were much more attuned to the story outside of Scarlett and Rhett this time, which I have to confess is what must have been the only thing I paid attention to in times past. The sugar coated, slavery is a good institution pre war attitude almost made me put the book down. Then the post war, hateful, name calling, one sided -- south was right north was wrong -- attitude was excrutiating, but by then I was too vested, and before long it got bearable again. I do remember hating the second part of the book when I was younger, and this must have been why. It's a far cry from even the new Harper Lee book and is just shocking.
However, if it is being told from that generation, I do think it is what the plantation owner class, esp. women, did. How else could you live with it, without sugar coating it -- no, no slave was ever beaten or mistreated in the whole county, etc. etc., our way was better, they are going to kill us all, the Clan is required, etc. etc. I guess I worry that this book will be torn down from the libraries, and I hope it won't be. We need books like this to show us where we truly were so that we can never ever go there again, and so that we can understand the true anguish the sins of the past do truly still cause on a people.
Books don't tend to be written one sided any more, if anything they are politically correct and show both sides so you can see that the truth is somewhere out there and dependent upon your vantage point. But if we are too politically correct, especially in times past, then we are not being honest. How do we tell these stories? How do we keep these old stories from being ripped away, just because they make us hate what we are hearing and experiencing when we read them? I don't know.
As to the whole Scarlet (and Rhett, etc. etc.) thing, I think my view on her (and him, them, etc.) has not changed, but has definitely deepened. I'm perhaps more amazed that her POV was written when it was. We tend to think that that feminist revolution made women, but the fact is that it didn't, it just made a lot of women realize that there were others out there. (That is not to deny that legal changes didn't make sweeping changes for women's lives, both good and bad, but that isn't what I am talking about).
What an interesting story. Now, I confess, I'm scared to read the new Mammy version. What an indictment that must be. But I want to. Maybe I shall.
My eyes and ears were much more attuned to the story outside of Scarlett and Rhett this time, which I have to confess is what must have been the only thing I paid attention to in times past. The sugar coated, slavery is a good institution pre war attitude almost made me put the book down. Then the post war, hateful, name calling, one sided -- south was right north was wrong -- attitude was excrutiating, but by then I was too vested, and before long it got bearable again. I do remember hating the second part of the book when I was younger, and this must have been why. It's a far cry from even the new Harper Lee book and is just shocking.
However, if it is being told from that generation, I do think it is what the plantation owner class, esp. women, did. How else could you live with it, without sugar coating it -- no, no slave was ever beaten or mistreated in the whole county, etc. etc., our way was better, they are going to kill us all, the Clan is required, etc. etc. I guess I worry that this book will be torn down from the libraries, and I hope it won't be. We need books like this to show us where we truly were so that we can never ever go there again, and so that we can understand the true anguish the sins of the past do truly still cause on a people.
Books don't tend to be written one sided any more, if anything they are politically correct and show both sides so you can see that the truth is somewhere out there and dependent upon your vantage point. But if we are too politically correct, especially in times past, then we are not being honest. How do we tell these stories? How do we keep these old stories from being ripped away, just because they make us hate what we are hearing and experiencing when we read them? I don't know.
As to the whole Scarlet (and Rhett, etc. etc.) thing, I think my view on her (and him, them, etc.) has not changed, but has definitely deepened. I'm perhaps more amazed that her POV was written when it was. We tend to think that that feminist revolution made women, but the fact is that it didn't, it just made a lot of women realize that there were others out there. (That is not to deny that legal changes didn't make sweeping changes for women's lives, both good and bad, but that isn't what I am talking about).
What an interesting story. Now, I confess, I'm scared to read the new Mammy version. What an indictment that must be. But I want to. Maybe I shall.