Gone With the Wind

When I started this project, I think the book people were most surprised that I hadn't read was Gone With the Wind. I'd always meant to . . . but it is 1,000 pages after all. But what a great 1,000 pages! I've seen the movie a few times, although not recently, and the book was just as sweeping and epic as I'd expected. But it also had a feminist bent I didn't really anticipate. Scarlet, who starts out as a flighty southern belle concerned with nothing more than snagging her beloved Ashley turns into a rather capable businesswoman when faced with the harsh realities of post-war Georgia. She runs her husband's store, and when she is tipped off on how profitable sawmills are, acquires two of them and runs them to the shock of gentile Southern society.

The book starts off as an American version of Emma, with Scarlet concerned only with eligible bachelors and opportune matches, has this interesting feminist pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps middle, then ends as an American Wuthering Heights with Rhett and Scarlet as two stormy and somewhat despicable lovers. Of course, what those British classics don't have is the race issue. A recent Time Magazine article celebrating its 75th anniversary calls it "unforgivably racist." As I was reading the book, I wasn't convinced Margaret Mitchell shared the racist views of her characters, but rather was portraying a time and a place from history. But who knows . . . 1934 Atlanta wasn't exactly the capital of civil rights.

I was actually surprised at how many issues from the war and Reconstruction the book included--the poor conditions of the Confederate soldiers, the unabashed extortion of the Carpetbaggers, the not-much-better-than-slavery conditions for the newly freed blacks, and the disenfranchisement of Southern citizens. It was a meatier picture of the period than I expected. But the romance of the book is probably the most captivating aspect. Even though I knew the outcome and was shocked by the foibles of both Rhett and Scarlet, I couldn't help but hope they pulled it together in the end. But frankly, he still didn't give a damn.