⇒ PDF Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 9780446675536 Books

Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 9780446675536 Books

Download As PDF : Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 9780446675536 Books

Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 9780446675536 Books

Who would have thought that a 1037-page, 80-year-old novel about a spoiled, petulant teenager in petticoats would completely suck me in, and turn out to be one of the greatest novels of all time?

Everything about this book is beyond superlative--vivid characters, settings that live and breathe, but especially Margaret Mitchell's prose. It would be worthwhile for any writer to study her sentences, every one of which flows with living motion, without a single flowery word. The dialogues between Scarlett and Rhett make sparks fly off the pages!

One could criticize the liberal use of racially offensive terms and the portrayal of happy slaves, but I would disagree. Within the world so meticulously created by the author, a bygone world, for all its faults, that was seen as being in equilibrium before its downfall, to have done otherwise would have been false.

This is truly the Great American Novel, in the top 5 of the greatest books I've ever read, and I suggest that you will thank yourself for reading it. My only regret about finishing Gone With the Wind is that now I can never again read it for the first time.


Tags : Gone with the Wind [Margaret Mitchell] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The tumultuous romance of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler is set against the backdrop of the elegance of the antebellum South,Margaret Mitchell,Gone with the Wind,Grand Central Publishing,0446675539,Historical - General,Georgia;History;Civil War, 1861-1865;Fiction.,O'Hara, Scarlett (Fictitious character);Fiction.,Women;Georgia;Fiction.,(Fictitious character),American Historical Fiction,Civil War, 1861-1865,Classics,Fiction,Fiction Classics,Fiction Fantasy Epic,Fiction Historical,Georgia,History,Literature - Classics Criticism,Mitchell, Margaret, 1900-1949,O'Hara, Scarlett,Women,O'Hara, Scarlett (Fictitious c

Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 9780446675536 Books Reviews

Of course this book is still very much an American classic and as exciting a read as in 1935 when it was first published. This is my first time reading it in 30 yr., although I read it several times as a young adult.
So many parts of the story that were not particularly as important when I was in my early 20's were glaringly important to me now. Such as the beginnings of the Klu Klux Klan, and why. Also, during the reconstruction, the real differences between "new" money and the old. Learning about the hardships placed on the whites by the National govt.,such as allowing black people to vote and not allowing the whites to do so. Evidently decent people,black and white suffered incredibly.
One must also keep in mind that Mrs. Mitchell was also the product of her time, living in Atlanta with her well to do family, and servants who's
parents and grandparents had probably been slaves to her household before the Civil War. It is to her credit that she tries to tell both sides of the story, black and white.
This book is so fine, on so many levels, I believe it should be read by just everyonem
Hoo boy, this is a hard one to describe. I should point out that I'm from Atlanta born and raised and read this book multiple times as a kid and LOVED it. But re-reading it as an adult it's really hard to get past the egregious and inescapable racism that permeates it. On the one hand the main story is a good one, well written and well told. Scarlett is a great character, a true female antihero who's complex and maddening and very human. Margaret Mitchell has a gift for characterization and story telling and the writing is generally fantastic.
BUT
But it's un-apologetically racist, the characterizations of the non-white parties are cringe-inducing and as a rational adult it's hard to swallow the book's smug assurance that most slaves were happy, that Reconstruction was tyranny and that the white landowners of the antebellum South were the true victims of the Civil War. As a young white bookworm with liberal parents who was anxious to believe that racism and civil rights issues were a thing of the past I was able to forgive these flaws but now in this racially charged day of deep income and racial inequality it's a lot harder to just ignore that side of the novel.
On the other hand is it unjustifiably written off as fluff because of its female author in a way that, say, Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain novels are not? Yes I believe it is. Is it feminist? I think a case can be made for that too. But as for how many stars to give it I need multiple categories. For racism it gets zero stars, for a well told love story that ponders the complexity of female friendships as well as the nature of desire and the ways we lie to ourselves in the name of love it gets five. Beyond that and regarding its place in the literary canon, I am unqualified to say.
I bought this book after reading a politically correct rant in a magazine by someone who thought it was high time that the book should be shunned or even banned. In general, I tend to think that anything that people want to ban should be immediately and strongly supported for free speech reasons, if nothing else, but I did not necessarily have high expectations for the book. I assumed it would be a low/middlebrow, well written historical romance, but not much more than that. I was way wrong. Its a great novel on many levels plot, characterization, narrative flow, and effective advocacy and support for a vanquished way of life (Mitchell does not pretend to be objective; she is fighting a rear guard action to defend the South she loved against the judgment of history; the reason she infuriated liberal critics from the moment the book was published to the present day was because she fought that action so effectively in this book.). Of course, her view of the institution of slavery was disingenuous (at best), but, on the other hand, her bitter attacks on the carpetbaggers and speculators during the reconstruction era certainly ring true. But the politics of the book are not the elements that make it great; it is the portrayal of an era and the way she makes you care about the events, characters, and land that make up Scarlett O'Hara's world

This novel is the second greatest selling book of all time (the Bible is first), and I can now see why it has maintained its extraordinary popularity for 75 years. That popularity was, and is, well deserved.
Who would have thought that a 1037-page, 80-year-old novel about a spoiled, petulant teenager in petticoats would completely suck me in, and turn out to be one of the greatest novels of all time?

Everything about this book is beyond superlative--vivid characters, settings that live and breathe, but especially Margaret Mitchell's prose. It would be worthwhile for any writer to study her sentences, every one of which flows with living motion, without a single flowery word. The dialogues between Scarlett and Rhett make sparks fly off the pages!

One could criticize the liberal use of racially offensive terms and the portrayal of happy slaves, but I would disagree. Within the world so meticulously created by the author, a bygone world, for all its faults, that was seen as being in equilibrium before its downfall, to have done otherwise would have been false.

This is truly the Great American Novel, in the top 5 of the greatest books I've ever read, and I suggest that you will thank yourself for reading it. My only regret about finishing Gone With the Wind is that now I can never again read it for the first time.