Retrospective Read: Gone With the Wind

This book contains a great memory for me. I read it the summer I was in America, in 2007. The only copies the library had were these big hardcover books – the book was split into two parts because the copies were so big – with full-page illustrations scattered throughout.

I tore (not literally) through the first book and then had to wait a few days to get my hands on the next instalment, which as anyone who’s been in that situation would know is agony!

It’s a huge book, but I think I read the whole thing in about a month. It just seemed to go on forever. At the time I googled it a lot and found out that it is considered to be literarily quite poor. I didn’t understand why at the time, but now looking back on it I can see that it’s not great prose, though it is still a classic.

I think I’ve read it through in full once since then, and now it’s just one of those books that I can pick up and read from any page and then put it back away when I’m bored again.

Why did this book envelop me so completely that first time? The world that Margaret Mitchell describes so richly draws you in. At first the depiction of Southern slavery and class distinctions is hard to take, but I tried to read it in terms of its historical context, and then I just got sucked right into their world, their values and beliefs and ways of thinking. It was honestly a little scary.

So the loving nostalgia with which Mitchell describes the “old world” (cotton ranches, ladies and gentlemen, southern manners etc.) is compelling, as is the tenacity with which the characters try to hold onto this culture even as the world as they know it is crashing around their feet and the old ways no longer make sense.

The second element of GWTW that makes it magnetical is the relationship between Scarlett O’Hara, our heroine, and Rhett Butler, the archetypal bad-boy we love to hate. They are both terrible scoundrels, as Rhett is always quick to point out, but the difference between the two is that Scarlett truly wishes she could be the lady her mother taught her to be, but she is just too practical to pull it off. Rhett on the other hand is comfortable with his devilish ways.

Throughout the novel it is clear that Rhett is madly in love with Scarlett, but he “is not a gentleman” and she can’t manipulate someone who doesn’t play by the rules. When she thinks he’s in love with her, she teases him and tries to get a proposal out of him so she can shut him down. He doesn’t play into her game.

SPOILER SECTION BELOW: 

When he does eventually propose, she accepts – mostly out of practicality. Even when proposing to her, he doesn’t admit that he loves her, just that he “wants her more than he’s ever wanted any woman”. As he explains at the end of the book, though, he never could admit that he loves her because she treats the people who love her so terribly.

The heart-wrenching thing about the Scarlett and Rhett love story is they never actually get it together. They love each other so much, they are so perfect for each other, but they are constantly “at cross-purposes”.

Bear with me a moment while I bring up a Gossip Girl reference. The Blair and Chuck relationship, the central one in the series, is obviously influenced by Rhett and Scarlett. But Gossip Girl gets boring five minutes after they finally get together, and then after that it’s on again off again, breakup sex, hate sex, screwing around with other people, urgh, KMN.

Even though Rhett and Scarlett get married, and the sexual tension is theoretically resolved, the relationship tension is never resolved because by the time they admit they love each other, Rhett is actually speaking of it in the past tense. He’s run out of love for her, after about fifteen years of chasing.

/END SPOILER

So are you hating on Scarlett yet? (People who skipped the spoiler section, not so much.) Well, she’s the third reason I love GWTW. Likable characters aren’t always the best to read. Scarlett is so selfish, a phony, with questionable morals and terrible taste in friends and architecture. She is in many ways the opposite of the kind of person I want to be. She spends the whole book selling out to save herself and her family. It’s impossible not to admire her and get caught up in her charm, even though you want to slap her.

Should everyone read Gone With the Wind? Maybe, if only so you can get pop culture references to it. People who are sensitive to overwrought writing will find it a struggle, but the compelling plot will pull you through in the end. It’s well worth the read.