linddykal's review against another edition
4.0
Screen shots and behind the scene pictures of Gone with the Wind.
narcissacronin's review
5.0
Frank Kennedy should have died sooner.
Rhett Butler is a horrible person.
Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is also a horrible person.
Beatrice Tarleton is one of the few valid characters.
Rhett Butler is a horrible person.
Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is also a horrible person.
Beatrice Tarleton is one of the few valid characters.
madscibrarian's review
5.0
This review is also posted on my blog Mad Scibrarian.
My favorite genre to read is fantasy, especially high fantasy. There are numerous reasons for my love of fantasy, but one that is up there is world-building. High fantasy novels are set in a completely different world than our own, and it is up to the writer to thoroughly integrate a story into a world of their creation. They have to convince a reader that their world is different and interesting, and the story is worth exploring within this world as opposed to any other. This is what Margaret Mitchell accomplishes with Gone with the Wind. True, she doesn’t create the pre- and post-Civil War South from scratch, but she creates an accurate (though biased) rendition of the time period. Growing up, she heard many stories of the glorious pre-war South from disgruntled Confederacy veterans and she based the Tara plantation off of local plantations and the plantation her grandmother grew up at. She knew how Southerners saw the Confederacy, what their daily life was like, and how they struggled through the war as well as through the Reconstruction period. Gone with the Wind is a story that has to take place in the Civil War South; it would not be the same novel without it.
Our story is mostly told through the eyes of Scarlett O’Hara. At the beginning of the novel she is 16 years old and enjoys going to parties and dancing. She’s a silly teenager and she is quite an unlikeable character, but that’s the point. Scarlett is here to show us how the South goes from prosperous to poverty. She and her love interest, Rhett Butler, are here to poke fun at Southern society mannerisms and provide a way for the novel to criticize the South. The Confederates went into a war that they were going to lose, but talk to any one of them and they would tell you how the wrong side surrendered. We need a silly girl who doesn’t pay attention to politics along with a black sheep to present the true facts of why the South lost. Scarlett and Rhett are a sharp contrast to Melanie and Ashley, another important couple of the story. Melanie and Ashley represent the old South as they never truly learn, adjust, or thrive post-War. Scarlett shows how one can survive and adapt in a post-War South. Margaret Mitchell herself said that the main theme of the novel is survival, and no one quite knows survival as well as Scarlett O’Hara.
There is just so much more to this novel and I wholeheartedly enjoyed it.
My favorite genre to read is fantasy, especially high fantasy. There are numerous reasons for my love of fantasy, but one that is up there is world-building. High fantasy novels are set in a completely different world than our own, and it is up to the writer to thoroughly integrate a story into a world of their creation. They have to convince a reader that their world is different and interesting, and the story is worth exploring within this world as opposed to any other. This is what Margaret Mitchell accomplishes with Gone with the Wind. True, she doesn’t create the pre- and post-Civil War South from scratch, but she creates an accurate (though biased) rendition of the time period. Growing up, she heard many stories of the glorious pre-war South from disgruntled Confederacy veterans and she based the Tara plantation off of local plantations and the plantation her grandmother grew up at. She knew how Southerners saw the Confederacy, what their daily life was like, and how they struggled through the war as well as through the Reconstruction period. Gone with the Wind is a story that has to take place in the Civil War South; it would not be the same novel without it.
Our story is mostly told through the eyes of Scarlett O’Hara. At the beginning of the novel she is 16 years old and enjoys going to parties and dancing. She’s a silly teenager and she is quite an unlikeable character, but that’s the point. Scarlett is here to show us how the South goes from prosperous to poverty. She and her love interest, Rhett Butler, are here to poke fun at Southern society mannerisms and provide a way for the novel to criticize the South. The Confederates went into a war that they were going to lose, but talk to any one of them and they would tell you how the wrong side surrendered. We need a silly girl who doesn’t pay attention to politics along with a black sheep to present the true facts of why the South lost. Scarlett and Rhett are a sharp contrast to Melanie and Ashley, another important couple of the story. Melanie and Ashley represent the old South as they never truly learn, adjust, or thrive post-War. Scarlett shows how one can survive and adapt in a post-War South. Margaret Mitchell herself said that the main theme of the novel is survival, and no one quite knows survival as well as Scarlett O’Hara.
There is just so much more to this novel and I wholeheartedly enjoyed it.
More...