Finished: Gone With The Wind (Mitchell). Oh, I loved this book! It becomes an instant favorite. Such a sweeping, detailed tale of love, loss, determination, tragedy, despair, courage, character, selfishness, selflessness, history, pride, greed, survival and grace. All those things wrapped into one. With the heartbreaking tragedy of the Civil War as the backdrop, the main characters are stripped bare and shown what they were made of. All my life as a young girl I loved, LOVED, Ashley...Ashley...said in that southern drawl. I guess I was like Scarlett, thinking he was the epitome of the southern gentleman who I could idealize. I could see how Scarlett would be so in love with him, and Melly too. All that based on a movie I saw years ago. Then, reading the book, I see that he was such a weak person. That doesn't totally change my opinion of him, but if he was truly so honorable, would he have been so torn between Melly and Scarlett all those years? I mean, who couldn't help but love Melanie Hamilton Wilkes? She will always be one of my favorite characters in movie or book. But Ashley Wilkes isn't really the end all be all that I always thought. No, after reading Gone With The Wind, I have to say that I adore Rhett Butler! If only his pride had let him tell Scarlett early on that he loved her. If only Scarlett could have realized much sooner that she loved him. How heartbreaking for her to realize, finally, at the end of the book...after beloved Melly has died, that she'd loved Rhett for years! That her love for Ashley was really a love based on her not being able to snare Ashley like she had all the other men. That Ashley was weak...a representation of a lost, genteel world...another person she'd just have to take care of.

Another aspect of the book which was lost on me so many years ago was the devotion and love of the servants like Mammy, Pork and Old Pete for their owners, and vice verse. I know that just typing that sentence sounds disgusting. I could never, would never, and have never condoned slavery. I can't imagine one human being owning another. The book is exploring a time period, though. A time when this was the norm in the south. A time when these people didn't know differently. And by these people I mean the youngsters like Scarlett O'Hara. She was born into the world where a large black woman, Mammy, took care of her practically more than her mother did. Mammy fixed her scrapes, fed her food, dressed her, tended her. If a baby was born to a mother who "had no milk", it was not uncommon for one of the black house servants to nurse the baby. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the people like Scarlett loved and adored and respected their Mammy's. They weren't prejudiced against them. They weren't derogatory to them. I'm not trying to make a controversial statement at all. And, I know I'm basing that on that on this one book. And, that's all I'm meaning here. To see that Mammy, Pork, Old Pete, Prissy, Dilcey and more stayed with their previous owners even after the war was over and they were free was such a huge statement. They loved their former owners and, in addition, were treated with scorn and hypocrisy by their "saviours" from the north. One scene that hits home from the book is when one of the Yankee women who has moved into Atlanta after the war is asking Scarlett's advice about getting a nanny for her children. When Scarlett suggests a black nanny, the northern woman is horrified. She won't have any black person being near her child, much less being her nursemaid. Scarlett is taken aback..."but you freed the black folks??" She doesn't understand how they can feel that way....how they can be the ones who are actually prejudiced against a race of people that they really know nothing about. Of course, on the flip side...there were those slaves who were not taken into the bosom of the family. They were the field slaves. These slaves were categorized in such a lower category and belonged down in the lower class like the "white trash". The O'Hara's didn't mistreat their slaves with beatings, but I know the historical horror stories show that many, many human beings were degraded, whipped, and treated like animals as they were just slave labor to their owners. I'm not sure I have a point here except to say that it took me being an adult to read this story and see that, perhaps many of the people who were freed by the ending of the Civil War stayed on with the families they'd been with for years because they WERE family to them.

Speaking of the war....what heartbreaking, candid descriptions of the horrible conditions of war that these young men went through. The loss of life was just astounding. My heart was beating as hard as Scarlett's and Melly's when then casualty lists started coming in! I knew, of course, that Ashley survived...but reading as Scarlett read down the list and when she got to the heartbreaking fact that all four of the Tarleton sons had been killed, it just broke my heart! Two of the sons, the red-headed twins, were the boys she grew up with who catered to her on the porch in the opening scenes of the movie and book. The book went into so much more detail about those boys, and about each of the families affected. I'll never, ever fathom the atrocities of war. I understand that the southerners were fighting for The Cause...but what a worthless cause. Not to them at the time, I know...but to see in through the eyes of history, how horrific. And, the aftermath with the reconstruction and the corrupt governing of Georgia (where the book took place), the horrible way the ignorant, illiterate, "freed black folks" (I just can't type the n-word that they used) were used by the northern government to maintain their iron grip on the southerners trying to rebuild. It was all just awful. An awful tragedy.

And, above it all rose the main characters...well, most of them. First of all Katie Scarlett O'Hara...the willful, strong, independent, passionate, selfish daughter of a fiery Irishman, and a true genteel southern lady. I've always thought that Scarlett was so incredibly selfish. I never knew that at the start of the story Scarlett was only 16 years old!! I could forgive her behavior and feelings just a little bit more knowing that by the time she had married her first husband (a friend's stolen beau), lost him to the war 2 months later, and was a young widow with a baby, she was only 17! Of course, by that age you should know right from wrong, but again, she was brought up the way she was brought up.....a spoiled, pampered girl who never did anything for herself and never took no for an answer! She was used to being the center of attention and having every boy fall in love with her. When Ashley Wilkes resisted his feelings for Scarlett and married Melanie, that began her lifelong yearning and desire for Ashley that would ruin her relationship with Rhett. I say lifelong, but Scarlett is only 28 when the story ends!! And, as the war rages on and finally affects Atlanta, where she's been living with her late-husband's relatives, Scarlett goes from 17 to 19 and shows a strength and courage that most adults don't have for years and years, if ever. In the face of Atlanta burning down around her, she stays with Melly and delivers her baby for her. Determined to get back home to the family plantation, Tara, she sends for Rhett, and with his help in a rickety old wagon, with a near dead horse, she gets them back to Tara. She may complain and be selfish while she's doing it. She make think hateful thoughts of Melly...but she still does it. She doesn't leave her behind. She may be doing it for her precious Ashley, but she still does it. She forms a bond between herself and Melly that she won't realize until Melly's deathbed was one of the most important bonds of her life.

And speaking of Melanie....could there be a more respected, determined, loyal, loving character? Her quiet strength in the face of the hardships is so admirable. Her faith in people more so. She's very fragile and never fully recovers from the birth of her boy, Beau, but she shows so much strength, some physical, but mostly mental, throughout the book. She becomes the pillar for everyone to draw strength from. She has the respect of the community. In essence, she is the younger version of the Scarlett's own selfless mother. Everyone falls in love with Melanie for her own nature. Even the swarthy Rhett Butler thinks she's the most magnificent woman and treats her gently and with the utmost respect. Melanie remains loyal to her "sister" Scarlett (Scarlett's first husband was Melanie's brother), throughout the entire book. She will never forget that Scarlett didn't leave her behind...that she saved Melly and her baby...and that once at Tara, Scarlett worked her fingers to the bone to keep Tara from going under and to keep their rag-tag family from going hungry. Scarlett spends all her life jealous that Melanie has Ashley, while Scarlett just knows that Ashley loves her (Scarlett). When Melly finally dies at the end of the book, Scarlett realizes that she didn't hate Melanie all those years, but truly loved her. She realizes that Ashley truly did love Melanie and will be lost without her...that Melanie was his backbone. While she may have been Ashley's backbone, she had become Scarlett's heart and touchstone of goodness. Her death is a heartbreaking and eye-opening event for all. Just as it makes Scarlett realize that she truly loves Rhett and not Ashley...it's too late. Rhett has finally had enough and he doesn't love Scarlett any more.

Speaking of Rhett, what a scamp, but what a man! You can see his goodness, much the way Melanie can see right through his rough exterior to the goodness...but Scarlett rarely sees that! She's so self-centered and determined to make money and never be hungry again, that she attributes most of Rhett's actions to selfish motivation and not love for her. Rhett is a swarthy, handsome, intelligent, independent, opinionated, stubborn man. He doesn't believe in the war, and so he won't fight in it. Instead, he makes tons of money running illegal blockades and selling the much coveted cotton of the south to the English at skyrocketing prices. He runs his boats in and out of Georgia until he makes enough money and the Yankee blockades become too tight and dangerous to go through. Rhett and Ashley have one thing in common....they both don't believe in the ideals of the war and that they should be going to war. However, Ashley does the "honorable" thing and goes to fight. Rhett does the practical thing and does not. Ashley isn't strong enough to stand up for his convictions. Of course, towards the end of the war, Rhett does enlist when his conscience finally gets the better of him. He falls in love with Scarlett the first time he sees her....when he mistakenly overhears her declaration of love for Ashley on the day that Ashley and Melanie become engaged at the last big ball before the war breaks out. He loves her fire and outspokenness, but he always hates and resents that she loves Ashley through all her hardships. When Scarlett and Rhett finally marry, you can tell that he's just longing for her to realize that she loves HIM. However, if he could just show a little less pride and sarcasm, there are a few times that Scarlett is on the verge of confessing her growing feelings for him. But alas, Rhett always runs away and never lets her know how he's feeling. He does save the day several times, though, including saving Ashley and several other men from being arrested and hung by the Yankees! After Scarlett gives birth to their daughter, Bonnie, Rhett is a changed man...devoted to his daughter, but more and more estranged from Scarlett because he believes an ill-fated meeting between Scarlett and Ashley was them having an "affair", when actually, it was an embrace of friendship. Scarlett was beginning to see that she didn't truly love Ashley, she just didn't know it yet. Unfortunately her embrace was witnessed by others and the already much maligned and disrespected Scarlett became even more so, and particularly by Rhett, who had always tried to give her the benefit of doubt, and the benefit of his hope that she'd grow to love him. When beloved Bonnie is killed in a horse riding accident at a very young age, that is the final undoing of Rhett. When Melly passes away not much long after, that seals the deal. Rhett says he no longer loves Scarlett and he's leaving. He tells her she's finally free to go be with Ashley. But Scarlett cries out to Rhett that she loves him! Don't you see? I don't love Ashley, I love you Rhett! But, for Rhett it's too little, too late. He walks out of Scarlett's life and leaves her to once again push her worries to tomorrow. As Scarlett asks Rhett what she'll do without him, Rhett's last lines to Scarlett:

   "Scarlett, I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken---and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. Perhaps, if I were younger---" he sighed. "but I'm too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over. I'm too old to shoulder the burden of constant lies that go with living in polite disillusionment. I couldn't live with you and lie to you and I certainly couldn't lie to myself. I can't even lie to you now. I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can't."
   He drew a short breath and said lightly but softly: "My dear, I don't give a damn."
  She silently watched him go up the stairs, feeling that she would strangle at the pain in her throat.

And then Scarlett's last lines of the book as she picks herself back up and knows she'll have to go on without Rhett:

    "I'll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."

Perhaps if Margaret Mitchell hadn't died before she was 50, she may have written a sequel to her Pulitzer Prize winning novel and we could have seen if she intended for Rhett and Scarlett to ever find their way back together. Or, perhaps she would have left it as is. Either way, I loved this book and the depth of emotions it has made me feel about so many things. It's one of those books that I didn't want to end! A few passages I liked...

The opening two paragraphs of the book hooked me...the first introduction of Scarlett. Oh, by the way, when Margaret Mitchell wrote the book, Scarlett's name was Pansy O'Hara!! As she was getting the book published, the stronger name was suggested and needed. So...the opening paragraphs..

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against the hot Georgia suns.
   Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father's plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made a pretty picture. Her new green flowered-muslin dress spread its twelve yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the flat-heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from Atalanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties, and the tightly fitting basque showed breasts well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modestly of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's genteel admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own. 

I just love that description of Scarlett. :-)

When Scarlett furiously meets Rhett for the first time as he accidentally eavesdrops on her declaration of love for the betrothed Ashley:

"Sir," she said, "you are no gentleman!"

"An apt observation," he answered airily. "And, you, Miss, are no lady". 

hee hee, I love that one. That becomes the epitome of their relationship.

When Scarlett fights her way back to Tara and sees all the burned down mansions of her neighbors she is horrified and wonders if Sherman's burning march through Georgia has also destroyed her beloved Tara.:

Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?

One of Rhett and Scarlett's many frank conversations:

   "I'm surprised at you, Scarlett, for sprouting a conscience this late in life. Opportunists like you shouldn't have them." 
   "What is an oppor--what did you call it?"
   "A person who takes advantage of opportunities."
   "Is that wrong?"
   "It has always been held in disrepute--especially by those who had the same opportunities and didn't take them."

Sigh...what to read next?