Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Title: Gone With the Wind

Author: Margaret Mitchell

Pages: 1037

Finished: 5/30/17

First Sentence: Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

Summary: Gone With the Wind follows the life of Scarlett O'Hara as she goes from being the belle of the county in Georgia when times were carefree, to a widow during the Civil War, to a hard business women during Reconstruction. It's also a love story about her and Rhett Butler, though it takes 1000 pages for Scarlett to realize it. Also, I'm terrible at writing summaries. Google will give you much better ones.

Thoughts:  Woof! That was a read. It took me over a month. I think Mitchell took a gamble when she made Scarlett her main character. Now to be fair, I actually didn't mind Scarlett that much through most of the book. Sure she was selfish and a bit of an idiot, but she did her best to survive when times were tough. And once she got to the point where she was surviving, she had a hard time giving it up. I don't like how she treated her kids, but I felt like she was a woman in the wrong time. When she married Rhett though, I lost all respect for her.

I don't understand why Scarlett and Rhett spent their entire relationship barbing each other. Or, I get it on Rhett's side. He knew if he ever admitted his love to Scarlett she'd have complete power over him. But I don't understand Scarlett. She clearly had no idea how to read people. The fact that she was wrong so much of the time was incredible.

I found it interesting reading the book with 21st century ideals and a Northerner's perspective. It felt like the antebellum south was a definite history with rosy glasses/romanticized version of what The South as perhaps really like. Still, as a piece of historical fiction, it was very fascinating. And while I remember learning of the Reconstruction in school, I don't remember them talking about just how difficult it was for the former Confederates.

This book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and counts for my Award Winning Book in the Back to the Classics Challenge