Gone With
The Wind was one of around ten or eleven books that have always been
intimidating me. First, because romance has never been my favorite genre—I hear
you’re yelling at me that GWTW is not JUST a romance novel, I know, I know! But
still, besides the historical contents, I still think that GWTW is best
included in genre romance. Second, because of its thickness—1448 pages! GWTW
was perhaps one of the longest books I’ve have read. So, you see, GWTW would
not be my best choice for classics reading, however, GWTW has been reviewed as
a great literature by many people, that I think I must have a go. And that’s
how I decided to host this Gone With The Wind Read Along—which quite
surprisingly—got a lot of interested participants; thanks a lot to your guys!
:)
From my
update posts from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, you can see my progress with
GWTW, and you would know that despite of my efforts, I could not get into the
story as I have expected. One thing that was entertaining me through the story
is the historical aspect, the American Civil War and the slavery. It’s quite
interesting to see how the Southerners treated their slaves, and how the slaves
reacted; it’s even more interesting to follow Mitchell’s perspective towards
the slavery. Although sometimes I got difficulty in following how the blacks
speak, it could describe the atmosphere better.
But apart
from those aspects, the story itself had failed to impress me. The main culprit
was Scarlett, from whose point of view Mitchell had written the whole story. From
many discussions on Twitter with other participants and from participants’ Update Posts, Scarlett was not a favorite character, yet I have been advised to not
concentrating at Scarlett personalities only, but more on the upheaval of the
Southerners because of the war. Well, the problem is, Scarlett was a dominant
character here, as if Scarlett was the person who told me about main events in
this book. Tell me, when you did not like—or should I say ‘hate’?—a person,
could you appreciate anything that she/he said? I can’t….
Until now I
still don’t understand why Mitchell created such an annoying character to tell
her story. I could not trace any single positive aspect about Scarlett, other
than her determination. But to what aim was her determination? At first, when
she was much younger, and the life was good before the Civil War, Scarlett’s
main focus was to attract as much as beau to love and marry her; and I can see
even then, that Scarlett’s determination was so strong. After her world had
been up side down by the war, what was her main aim? Money! She could put aside
anything else—people who loved her, her conscience, even her logic—to be able
to get the only thing that filled her narrow-minded brain: money. I understand
that in crisis we need money to survive, and Scarlett has a good reason for
that too, she need money to save Tara, her family’s land. But again, what a
land would mean if she must lost everything else?
So no, I
still can’t understand why Mitchell ruined the great story by letting Scarlett
to tell it. And because of that, I personally don’t think that GWTW deserved to
be called classics. It is an epic, a great one, I agree, but not classics
(sorry if you think differently). And Scarlett’s and Rhett’s vulgar point of
views only made it worse, that sometimes I felt like I’m reading a piece of
chicklit or watching a soap opera, instead of a classic literature.
I must admit
that I failed to read the whole piece, when I came to Part 5 I just could not
get on. I just browsed the ending, and searched in Sparknotes about it, and
found that I did not miss many things, and really was not interested in knowing
the ending. Three stars for Gone With The Wind, for though I failed it, I think
Mitchell deserved an appreciation for telling this epic. And although this is
not a special review, I’d like to present this honest opinion to celebrate
Margaret Mitchell’s birthday today, November 8th. Happy birthday
Mrs. Mitchell!
*I read
Pocket Book’s June 2008 edition
*Total pages:
1448