Say what you want about political correctness (or lack thereof). It's all ridiculous anyway, because this book was written in a different age and about a different age. At its heart, this book is an intimate look at the American Civil War from a Southerner's perspective. And it's also got a whopping great (doomed) romance.
I grew up for 10 years in Chicago and then when I was nearly 11, we moved to a rural area in South Carolina. A few years later we moved to a small town in North Georgia. My father was from Philadelphia, but my mother and stepfather were Georgians. I always considered myself a hybrid, but I was the only one who thought so. Northerners ridiculed the soft drawl I picked up from my Georgian family; Southerners ridiculed my Northern speech patterns and LACK of a proper drawl. This was in the 1960s and 1970s. So tell me that nobody remembered the Civil War anymore. In both North and South a mere hundred years later, it defined a great many of my own relationships. In the North, elementary school history was all about the evil South and the the evils of slavery. When I got to the evil South--to a fully integrated school (as opposed to the totally white suburb of Chicago I'd inhabited before) I got the Southern perspective--the war came about because of unfair taxes, a federal government that took away states' rights, AND slavery. In some ways, GWTW provides a more comprehensive look at the reasons for secession than some of the history books I've seen. Although it's told from the perspective of rich plantation owners (does anyone even remember that rich plantation owners accounted for about 5% of the South's population??), rather than the "white trash" and "poor Crackers" (this would be people like my family) who made up most of the Southern army, the real focus is on why there needed to be a war at all. And the answer, of course, is, there didn't need to be one. The character of Rhett Butler, who serves the purpose of the one who got away; selfish Scarlett never knew she loved him until he left her--but in addition to that, he is the voice of hard, cold practicality, and 20/20 hindsight. He puts the war into economic terms, questions the motives of all the great heroes (I loved his sneer at Abe Lincoln's "crocodile tears") ridicules everything the Southerners claim to believe, but when the chips are down, he goes to fight too. Melanie and Ashley mourn the loss of their gentle way of life, but both sacrifice everything they have for their "Cause."
Better descriptions than mine have already been written about the plot of this book: Selfish Scarlett wants to marry Ashley, but he marries Melanie, so Scarlett sets out to make everyone miserable when the war intervenes. For years she is forced to put her energies into things she'd never given thought to before--like surviving. In the course of surviving she finds out women--herself in particular--are nowhere near as weak or silly as she's been raised to think, and she discovers talents she never knew she had (such as making money) as well as making the knees weak of most men in her vicinity. But of course in the course of surviving, becoming successful, and finally even gaining Ashley, she makes herself the most miserable of all.
But there's so much more to it than that. So much about the rapid change of society (anyone who's lived more than 40 years should be able to appreciate that), the horror and ultimate futility of war (anyone who's ever been in the military, or had a son or daughter or friend in the military, should understand that), changing values (such as priorities going from what dress I should wear to the party to will I be able to eat tomorrow).
And it makes the war up-close and personal, whether in the scenes leading up to and including the burning of Atlanta or the destruction of Tara's pathetic cotton harvest. Gettysburg notwithstanding, the vast majority of the battles in the war were fought in the South. So most of the destruction was in the South. Rich plantation and tiny sharecropper acreage alike were destroyed, and most of the 50,000 civilians killed in the war were Southerners. This is why “Little Women,” technically also a Civil War novel, doesn’t seem like one—the March sisters were comfortable and untouched in Massachusetts, at worst suffering an occasional shortage or worrying about their father—while GWTW touches every horror women in the South faced, from starvation to rape and worse.
I first read this book when I was eleven, not long after we had moved south. It was an eye-opener. I’ve read the book at least fifteen times since then (I’m now 56), most recently purchasing it as an ebook to replace a worn-out hardcover. I read it again, specifically focusing on some of the descriptive passages in the last days of Atlanta, the trip back to Tara and the settling there only to be attacked again by the dreaded Yankees, and I marvel that Mitchell can write such vivid description while the reader (in my case a professional editor) isn’t even aware that it’s just a description. I don’t like reading long descriptions, and some of the worst (in several famous books I could name) have prompted me to skim pages to get back to the story, but with Mitchell I never noticed. I felt the gumminess of Scarlett’s skin in the heat of the day; saw the bloody and dying soldiers on the streets around the train depot, felt the hunger gnawing in her gut when she dug that radish out of the ground. There’s a reason a blockbuster movie came from this book (but is not as good as the book); there’s a reason Carol Burnett’s parody of the story is the most popular of all her wonderful comedic sketches. This book transported ordinary people into the setting and made them feel the agony. And considering how unlikable Scarlett O’Hara really is, it’s doubly amazing that Mitchell makes me root for her. Maybe I don’t want her to get Ashley (heavens, what would she DO with him—he bores her stiff!) but I want her to survive. You want Tara to regain its former glory even as you know it never will. And no matter how many times I read it, I still keep hoping Scarlett will recognize that Rhett loves her before it’s too late. Now THAT is powerful writing.
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Lovely presentation
It’s a big book, but the hardcover makes it more easy to read, the size and ink intensity is very good too. Saw the movie and love it.
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2015
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Cliente KindleReviewed in Brazil on October 9, 2022
Gostei muito do livro
Gostei muito do livro. Foi um preço acessível pois foi no dia da bookfriday. 30% de desconto em alguns títulos de livros importados. Gostei muito da edição devido ao preço que paguei.Cliente KindleGostei muito do livro
Reviewed in Brazil on October 9, 2022
E é uma edição cuja capa é bonita e é um livro comum não é capa dura. Não é pocket; o tamanho é bom.
Fiquei feliz com o material.
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