Gone With the Wind

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rummageman
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Re: Gone With the Wind

Post by rummageman »

Now I have to read the book.

This is my first post here although I’ve been reading through these forums for a few weeks. I’d seen the movie and read the screenplay. Earlier this morning I found an old copy of GWTW in the attic (really) and thought it might be too much to take on at the moment. So now, as I hold the book in my hand ready to start reading, I join the forums.
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Post by asmaahsan »

redlegs - :)

grenadine54 - it never happened to me as thankfully, I didn't get the chance to make a wrong decision in my life but I helped quite a few people around me get over a wrong decision. Not everyone is as lucky as you to get the guy who liked you back in your life. The women I know who ran after the wrong guy lost the guy who actually liked them as he got married to someone else. A bit of a bummer actually.
:techie-reference: I am not a life coach; life coaches me ~ Asma Fikri.
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samdgood
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Post by samdgood »

Hortonreader wrote:Reading most of the posts it sounds like reading the sequel might be a waste of time... Is that true?
i don't think it was a waste of time. it wasn't margaret mitchell and it wasn't gone with the wind but it was a good book

-- Fri Jan 18, 2013 8:38 am --
Grenadine54 wrote:
samdgood wrote:i agree with everyone that gone with the wind is the best book and the book is better than the movie. i always thought the movie is great but you get more out of it if you read the book first. as far as the sequel goes, i was so angry when i started reading it i almost tossed it. but it's hard for me to start a book and not finish it so i read it. it was good once i got past the beginning but not as good as the original.

the thing that made me so angry was YOU CANNOT CHANGE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST BOOK! the sequel starts out with scarlet having two children. and that is nuts. she married her first husband who left for war immediately then died. then she married frank and he ended up dead. she had no children by either husband. then she married rhett and had bonnie who died and then had a miscarriage. so my question is, how can she have 2 kids in the second book? has anyone seen "misery" by stephen king? i feel like the crazy lady who explained to the author that you have to be true to the story.
i feel so stupid. i was so surprised when people reponded to my post by saying that scarlet did indeed have children. i read a LOT and tend to re-read books because you pick things up that you missed or forgot. i never re-read GWTW until now and i am so surprised that scarlet "within 2 weeks was married and within 2 months was a widow and a mother". she even took the child with her to atlanta. guess i have to finish rereading... maybe i should have done that when i started "Scarlet" and just "assumed" the author just made that up. you know what they say about assume... ass me LOL
That was the case in the movie. In the film, Scarlett only had Bonnie, and she died by falling off her horse. In the book, Scarlett did have a son by Charles, her first husband, and a daughter by Frank, her second husband. Bonnie died in the book as well. Later on, in the "Scarlett" sequel, she got pregnant by Rhett again and had a daughter. All in all, four kids for our Scarlett, one of which is passed away.

Alexandra Ripley may not have written the best sequel (honestly, none should have been written in the first place), but she did get Scarlett's offspring right.
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rummageman
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Post by rummageman »

Like I said I’m reading the book for the first time so Ah don’t know nutin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies. But as for a sequel being written for it I have to stay with M. Mitchell’s own thoughts. From inside the back flap of the copy I have is this:

To the question, “Did Scarlett get Rhett back?” Miss Mitchell consistently said she didn’t know. To her the book ended where it ended.
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Post by Grenadine54 »

samgood They both really are one big mother of books. That thick thing...it's hard to keep things straight with all the great literature out there. Some characters actually tend to blend into themselves for me too, even when they weren't written by the same author.

rummageam This reminds me of how there's a whole community of writers out there, ie sci fi or comic book writers, that consist entirely of fans. There are whole websites of published essays and novels that "continue" where stories have left off. I think it's great that these exist out there, because it makes fans so happy to imagine their favorite characters "staying alive". Ripley's Scarlett and Rhett surely had a different ending than for most of us.
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asmaahsan
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Post by asmaahsan »

I thought the ending of the original was very fitting.

I haven't read the sequel because I didn't want to spoil the feel of the first one. Very few sequels do justice to the original.
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Post by Wrycatcheer »

I loved the book, and I found myself rushing faster and faster through it in order to reach the end, and a resolution. For all that though, I thought the ending was sort of abrupt. It was good, in that it left me yearning for something more, and that kind of emotional response is, I'm sure, all any author should hope for. Someone earlier said it was true to life, and I agree with that, but it is almost too much so, and I am left with this vague sense of something incomplete. I think this is the reason there has been more than one sequel made by separate authors, it just doesn't feel done. Of course that's intentional, though. I'm scared to read the sequel or Rhett Butler's People, for fear they will ruin the various endings I've come up with in my head. In any case, it's a work of art, and definitely struck a chord with me.
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Post by samdgood »

i believe everyone felt the story wasn't over and that margaret wanted to leave each person to believe as they wanted... scarlet went home, got her shtuff together and came back to win rhett back. after all they did love each other. it just took her a long time to understand it. OR she went back to tara and when she came back rhett wouldn't have anything to do with her. she just took too long to realize she truly loved him and by that time his love died.

because the ending wasn't final, i understand that margaret was asked to do the sequel more than once and always refused. she also refulsed to allow anyone else to. after her death, her family finally gave permission for Scarlet to be written. i don't know this for a fact, it's just something i heard. i think you'll read scarlet.... it's not margaret mitchell but it's a good story.
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vera
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Post by vera »

I love the original GWTW and have also read the sequel. I have to say that reading the sequel was a mistake for me...it took me awhile to get it out of my system and forget about it...I read the GWTW again too close to the reading of the sequel and I kept "fast forwarding" in my brain and putting the sequel with the one I was reading. Maybe just the way my brain works. Enough time has passed now that I can separate the two but I still wish I hadn't read it. It was just....wrong.
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asmaahsan
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Post by asmaahsan »

Vera, why was it wrong? When a book becomes a best seller and it's sequel comes, it's bound to be different from the first one as its written at a different time. It this case, the sequel was written by another writer, so you just read the two viewpoints of two writers. Maybe some people like the second one better. It's your choice that you prefer the original, but how could you decide you liked the original if you hadn't read the sequel. I think one should always have a choice in life to decide what we want from a veriety of things. Now read it again and appreciate it for what you like in it. :)
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rummageman
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Post by rummageman »

Well I finally got around to reading that old copy of GWTW that I found in my attic and I still don’t think I’ll be reading the sequel. A story needs to end where it ends. Miss Mitchell was right when she said, “…to her the book ended where it ended.”

I understand there is community of fans trying to keep their favorite characters alive by writing sequels, but I don’t think another author has the time-line credentials that M. Mitchell had. Let’s look at them.

She was twenty-six years old when she started working on the novel. That’s only 61 years after the civil war; well with in the memory of a generation. This allows for all the historical content of her novel, whether real or imagined, or just plain folklore, to breathe the life that it does. And growing up in Georgia at that time the effects of reconstruction were still very strongly felt by native Georgians.

Just as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was Miss Betty Smith’s story to tell, so was Gone With the wind a story for Miss Mitchell to tell. And it should remain her story.
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asmaahsan
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Post by asmaahsan »

I have yet to find any sequel better than the original. Please correct me if i am wrong.

The ending Of Gone with the wind was perfect in my eyes as the character is shown as someone who reaped the rewards of her actions in the end. That's very true in real life too. Just as real life doesnt give you second chances,where you don't value what you have in your present and then when you lose it, try to get it back, this book also ended where it should have, showing the results of the actions of the protagonist.

It's perfectly in line with the times it depicts. No doubt about that. The movie was made on the book and did justice to it as well where depicting the social background of the said time period was concerned.
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Post by sullivan + 2 »

Read it on my porch swing when I was 13 or 14. Could not put it down. While I was reading it, I was also watching the family vegetable stand and shelling peas.
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Post by MandiKenendy »

I loved Gone with the Wind. I love the way you see Scarlett's character change over the book as the events of the novel happen. I really loved her relationship with Melanie through the book and the way it evolves. I read the sequel as well and actually didn't mind it. I just took it as one way the story could go and enjoyed reading more about them.
Has anyone ever read the sequel to Rebecca, Rebecca's Tale? I absolutely loved that sequel and thought it was really interesting to see things from Rebecca's POV.
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Post by Mazza WA »

samdgood wrote:i agree with everyone that gone with the wind is the best book and the book is better than the movie. i always thought the movie is great but you get more out of it if you read the book first. as far as the sequel goes, i was so angry when i started reading it i almost tossed it. but it's hard for me to start a book and not finish it so i read it. it was good once i got past the beginning but not as good as the original.

the thing that made me so angry was YOU CANNOT CHANGE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE FIRST BOOK! the sequel starts out with scarlet having two children. and that is nuts. she married her first husband who left for war immediately then died. then she married frank and he ended up dead. she had no children by either husband. then she married rhett and had bonnie who died and then had a miscarriage. so my question is, how can she have 2 kids in the second book? has anyone seen "misery" by stephen king? i feel like the crazy lady who explained to the author that you have to be true to the story.
Scarlett had three children in Gone With the Wnd. Wade Hampton, the son of her first husband, Charles Hamilton; Ella, the daughter of Frank Kennedy, and Bonnie, the daughter of Rhett Butler.

I read the sequel, and I wish I hadn't. One good thing about it - it taught me never never ever read a sequel that has been written by someone other than the original author. Both books are available on Kindle. I downloaded Gone With the Wind for 99 cents. Great value for having this timeless classic available anywhere, anytime. (I find the original hardback cover I have enormous, and heavy to hold).
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