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Gone With the Wind

watsup

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I’m reading Gone With the Wind. Not sure why, just thought of it a few weeks ago and realized that it had won a Pulitzer Prize and the movie had won Academy Awards, so I was curious. The language is stilted and the attitude is somewhat antiquated, but it certainly keeps your interest. Plus I have never spent much time thinking about the Civil War, so I am learning more about that too, such as General Sherman continually flanking the position of General Joe on his way south to Atlanta. Anyway, Melanie has just had their baby, and the Yankees are overrunning Atlanta. I think I’ll try to watch the movie sometime soon, too.
The South seems to have had quite a few good novelists, so I think that I will read To Kill a Mockingbird next.
 
This southern writer will blow your mind. I'm reading his memoir now, about growing up in a share cropper family and eating possum was a treat.


The Gospel Singer by Harry Crews: 9780143135098 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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I think the south produces so many good writers because they live in fiction so much of the time. They're used to storytelling.

(Yes, that was sarcasm, but it is based in truth.)
 
I saw the movie as a teen and never realized there was a book.

The Ballad of the Flim-Flam Man

With a quicksilver tongue, the hands of a grifter, and …
www.goodreads.com

The author, Guy Owen, was born and raised in eastern North Carolina and draws on his memories for much of the content.

Got me interested in the process for curing tobacc.

The film is available on YT. Stars George C Scott and one of my early crushes, Sue Lyon.
 
NWRatCon said:
I think the south produces so many good writers because they live in fiction so much of the time. They're used to storytelling.

(Yes, that was sarcasm, but it is based in truth.)
Click to expand...

Usually in regards to fishing and hunting stories.
 
Another Pulitzer Prize winner, The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, is a better follow up read to Gone with the Wind.
 
I'll be honest, I read and watched it decades ago and have no desire to repeat either experience. I thought they were both awful (although I always enjoyed Clark Gable). In fact, I gave up on the book before I finished it. There are so many  other good, southern writers - Faulkner, Poe, Harper. Mitchell doesn't belong in that company.
 
I'm going to criticize myself. Since I posted this, I went to look for other views. In the process, I read (and watched) a number of reviews. They gave me perspectives I didn't have when I read (or attempted to read) this book ... in my 20s. I realize now that what I was reacting to then was not viewed with as mature an outlook as I have now. I remember the parts I recoiled from. I really disliked Scarlett, so her travails didn't interest me. I felt the secondary characters were cardboard cutouts.

Now I may have to take a second look. Maybe at this point in my life, I can read it differently. I'm not afraid of reading hundreds of pages - I've read all of the Foundation books, the Ender books, Tolkien (even the slog The Silmarillion), several tomes by Leon Uris (I can't remember if I've read them all), all of the Allen Drury Advise and Consent series (highly recommend, even now). Maybe this will become a summer project.

(*I also just noticed I left off Harper Lee's last name. Oops.)
 

I agree with the “cardboard characters” part. I think that’s what I was getting at then I said that. the dialogue was simplistic and stilted. Nevertheless, it’s interesting in understanding the consequences to the South of Gen Sherman’s “march” and how it affected the population. And it keeps your interest.
 
Lol. Our family tobacco farm that goes back to 1867 had a share cropper with us until 1975. He was like family.
 

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I love the book, found the details on many things....large and small (dresses/battles)...fascinating and educational on the period, culture, slavery, war, etc. All woven seamlessly into a solid story. Well worth reading and IMO, an easy read.

Comparing it to To Kill a Mockingbird, they are very different in most ways except that southern culture does come thru in the characters.
 
My memory of reading it is conjoined with my rejection of Ayn Rand novels, which I thought were incredibly bad, too. I am going to reevaluate the former (but not the latter - I tried to reread her before, and gagged), and give it another pass.
 
VySky said:
Lol. Our family tobacco farm that goes back to 1867 had a share cropper with us until 1975. He was like family.
Click to expand...
I’m gonna guess the “share cropper” didn’t look like your family.
 
To Kill a Mockingbird was a great read. "From the mud to the stars" "Bust up a chiffarobe". Atticus was an interesting character.
 
Good move.
 
I liked it. First read it in the 4th grade. It's not a tough read.
William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Wolfe, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Penn Warren, Ralph Ellison, and of course, Mark Twain.
 
Loulit01 said:
I liked it. First read it in the 4th grade. It's not a tough read.
Click to expand...

I can kind of understand some of the pushback by men. It's written as a romance which expands into well-written & researched historical fiction. But it does focus a lot on women's fashions and women's "wiles" and the backstory of Scarlett/Melly/Ashley. But the female perspective from that era is also illuminating (not romance, but traditions, limitations, the 'behind the scenes' roles played as nurses, fundraisers, supporting families with the men gone, etc.)
 
NWRatCon said:
My memory of reading it is conjoined with my rejection of Ayn Rand novels, which I thought were incredibly bad, too. I am going to reevaluate the former (but not the latter - I tried to reread her before, and gagged), and give it another pass.
Click to expand...
i

I actually read the Ayn Rand novels because it was a fad at that time. They were absolutely terrible. Constant repetition of the “theme”. Turned me into a solid Democrat.
 
Loulit01 said:
I liked it. First read it in the 4th grade. It's not a tough read.

William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Wolfe, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Penn Warren, Ralph Ellison, and of course, Mark Twain.
Click to expand...
Pat Conroy added to the list.
 
What I remember most about Gone With The Wind was the scene of wounded soldiers being attended to outside. The camera moves back and their numbers keep increasing, driving home the scale and tragedy of the conflict. What fools we mortals be.
 
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