Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Gone With The Wind, or GWTW as some call it, was Margaret Mitchell's first and only book. She won a Pulitzer for it. Maybe she figured she couldn't top that, so she stopped writing. Or, maybe she had just a single, huge, sweeping book in her.

I'm re-reading GWTW, mostly because I read a colleague's posts on Facebook about her impressions when reading the book for the first time. She'd seen the movie (who hasn't?) and thought it was about time to read the book. She hates Scarlett. Finds her immoral, sly, Machiavellian, and thoroughly unlikable.

I thought back to the first time I read GWTW. I was maybe 20. I'd seen the movie with my mother when I was 12 or so and had been overwhelmed by the scope and grandeur of the story. I do remember, even at that tender age, wondering why in the world Scarlett was in love with Ashley? OK, he's refined, handsome, gentle, learned, and sophisticated - everything Scarlett is not. Still haven't figured that one out completely. However, she couldn't have him, which made him even more attractive, especially to a very spoiled and very willful 16 year old (when the book begins). That emotion I understand.

But that doesn't really drive the story. It doesn't make Scarlett make the awful decisions she makes - I want to smack her and tell her to think before she does silly things, like marry Charles Hamilton. I mean, except for an attempt (failed, I might add) to spite Ashley, what did it get her?

She walks over, pushes aside, kicks away any thing and anyone who gets in her way. She is conniving, sly, selfish, and an altogether unlikable character. And yet we love the book. We love the way Mitchell gives voice to the dying South before and after the war and makes us realize what actually was lost in that conflict. As well as what was gained. Scarlett may have been born into a dying society, but unlike Ashley and Melanie, she adapts to the changes of war, loss, and sorrow with strength and drive. However, at the same time, she remains that young girl who could charm anyone and who can't seem to see why the few things and people she really loves leave her.

GWTW gets five stars even if I can't love the heroine.