Let's Bust a Recap : Gone With the Wind

Alright, well since I admitted yesterday that I still had Gone With the Wind hanging around on my shelf, waiting since last year to be blogged about, I figured I'd go ahead and just tackle it today. According to Goodreads, I began reading Gone With the Wind on October 2nd last year and finished it on November 14th. However, I vividly remember wishing I could just devote all my time to reading it until I finished instead of, you know, going to work and handling my adult responsibilities. If it wasn't for all that, I'm pretty sure I'd have devoured this one in about a week. I read some real gems last year, but if push came to absolute shove, I might have to say that Gone With the Wind was my favorite book of 2021, and it's definitely on my list of All Time Favorites now.

Gone With the Wind is one of those Southern classics I was always a little ashamed I hadn't read, but because of its sheer length (and maybe also due in part to the sheer length of the film as well), I just never picked it up. I've had that tattered hardcover edition sitting on my shelf for years. Now that I've read it, it's one of those books I'm chagrined I didn't pick up sooner. I couldn't put it down, and I'll forever be indebted to my sister-in-law for agreeing to buddy read it with me and giving me that final nudge I needed to start it. Literally days before we began reading it, I found that mass market paperback in a Little Free Library and boy am I ever glad because it went everywhere with me.

If you're somehow unfamiliar with this iconic saga, it's the coming-of-age story of Scarlett O'Hara, a spoiled sixteen year old Southern belle living in Clayton County, Georgia when the South is on the brink of seceding from the Union and entering the Civil War. Throughout the course of the novel, Scarlett grows up, ends up being widowed twice and married three times, successfully preserves her family plantation Tara through the Reconstruction Era, births three children (and has one awful miscarriage), loses one of her children, and ends separated from the man she loves but with the determination to get him back. 

When I say I experienced just about every human emotion imaginable while reading this book, I am not exaggerating even a little. Margaret Mitchell produced a masterpiece of a novel and I totally get why it's still one of the most popular books in the world. Despite its 1936 publication date, in a poll as recent as 2014 it's still considered the second most popular book in America behind only the Holy Bible itself. More than 30 million copies have been printed worldwide and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. The thing that won me over and made me a lifelong fan was Mitchell's ability to write such human characters. While Scarlett and Rhett Butler do some absolutely reprehensible things, you completely understand what led them to their actions. It's hard to hate Scarlett (or Rhett for that matter) when I'm sitting in my cozy armchair at home wondering what I would have done in the same situation. While I aspire to be the kind of Southern woman Scarlett's mother Ellen or the indomitable Melanie Hamilton are, I can sympathize with young Scarlett's desperation and her overwhelming determination to "make it". While reading Gone With the Wind, I flip-flopped between despising Scarlett and pitying her. That's excellent writing. I've said before that my favorite books tend to be ones that present me with moral dilemmas and ethical tension that's hard to stomach, and Mitchell produces that tension in spades in Gone With the Wind. 

There have been several sequels and prequels to Gone With the Wind (some authorized, some not), but none by Margaret Mitchell herself. And even though a couple of these have come highly recommended to me by trusted sources, I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to read any of them. Gone With the Wind stands on its own and despite its heartbreaking and unresolved ending, it needs no sequel. There's something so fitting about Scarlett's closing lines: "I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day." Throughout all of Gone With the Wind, Scarlett copes with her own impossible choices by not thinking of them today, but putting off the hard thoughts for another day. What better way to end her story than with her personal maxim?

The 1939 movie adaptation starring Vivien Leigh is considered by many to be one of the greatest films of all time, and it won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1939. I personally have only seen it in its entirety maybe twice in my life, the last time being at the beginning of 2010 so I'd be hard pressed to comment on the book versus the movie. But now having read the novel, I have the vague idea that I'd prefer to just sit down with it again over watching the film, something akin to my disgust with the Pride and Prejudice adaptations floating about in the world. But I'll hold my final judgment on this until I rewatch the movie with my sister-in-law. (She loves the movie.)

Gone With the Wind is not without its problems, and if you want to come at me with how problematic Gone With the Wind is, go right ahead. It will not change how I feel about the book, or the fact that I have every intention of reading it again. It is frequently the center of controversy and has been challenged and banned in multiple places, and I definitely get how it could be extremely triggering for some readers. Gone With the Wind may not be the book for everyone, but it will have a home in my library until I'm gone from this earth. 

Have you read it?