Reading Envy Readers discussion
Readalong: Gone with the Wind
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GwtW: Week 5 - May 26 - June 1 - Part 5
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Jenny (Reading Envy)
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May 27, 2019 05:18PM
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Once I finished Part 4 I couldn't stop and wait!! I powered through and finished a few days ago! Thank you to the Book Cougars and you, Jenny, for putting this read along out there! This book was so much more than I thought it was going to be. In the end I feel Scarlet's selfish and shallowness still remained on the surface even though she did grow as she worked and fought for others. Rhett was one thing she couldn't control or swoon her way into keeping him. Scarlet challenged him but his deep personality didn't give in, in the end.
What a read!!
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I think this explains my reading ennui for every other book - I should just go in and finish this!!
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "Oh. my. god. I know! WOW!
I thought it dragged just a little bit in Part 5 before the plot kicked in to high gear with some dreadful happenings. The ending was so dark. I loved it. Just perfect.
Overall, I thought it was just fantastic! My wife and I watched the almost-four-hour-long movie on Sunday and we both thought it was really good but the novel was supremely better, of course.
Like Deb said, I'm glad Jenny put this out there on Reading Envy as a readalong. I would've probably never read this due to my preconceived notion that it was a Southern-based romance. I was way off base. It's one of my all-time favorites now. Masterpiece!
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I know! WOW!
I thought it dragged just a little bit in Part 5 before the plot kicked in to high gear with some dreadful happenings. The ending was so d..."
I just checked out the deluxe edition of the movie so that's next, but I doubt I'll get my spouse to watch it.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: I just checked out the deluxe edition of the movie so that's next, but I doubt I'll get my spouse to watch it. Ha, ha! It's a grind, that's for sure. There is an intermission, even.
I thought the casting was great. The characters matched up well with what I had pictured in my head over the last 49+ hours. I don't think they could've picked a better Scarlett than Vivian Leigh. She was just perfect. Let us know what you think of it.
Finished here too, I was kind of glad Scarlett got a comeuppance of sorts even if she didn’t really realise that. The last lines imply she will try to get Rhett back but I don’t see that happening. Overall I liked the historical fiction aspects, the character study of a manipulative woman was good and well done. But the racism was a massive issue for me, I felt so uncomfortable reading parts of it, the describing black characters as being like animals was horrendous. I didn’t like the dialogue of the black characters being so hard to understand, presumably Mammy had been there long enough to learn English better than that being as how she was part of the family.
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I ended up feeling it was more of a character study too.
In some ways I see Scarlett now as similar to the people in the south who still fly Confederate flags and threaten and bluster - they really believe they are in the right and will win but they won't, they won't.
The racism was uncomfortable indeed but to leave it out would have seemed inauthentic, I mean even the year she wrote it the south was still segregated.
As far as accents, I still encounter some people in the south I can't understand because their accents are so thick. We have people here who are direct descendents of slaves and in some ways dialect can be a part of holding on to that culture, that identity. It was sure difficult to READ it though, especially when Mammy speaks for multiple paragraphs!
Accents are always a problem for me to read, i wonder if in the audiobook it was easier to understand especially that part where Mammy is taking to Melanie after the death of Bonnie. I understand the need to reflect the racism of the civil war time but it was the character descriptions that didn’t need to be so blatantly racist that got me riled up. I think Margaret herself was probably a big old racist.
Shatterlings wrote: "Accents are always a problem for me to read, i wonder if in the audiobook it was easier to understand especially that part where Mammy is taking to Melanie after the death of Bonnie. I understand t..." I have both - the audiobook and paper book - and I thing it was much easier to understand on the audiobook. A friend of mine who read the book years ago also remarked that she struggled with some of the text, she said it helped to read it out loud. The narrator of the audiobook was just fantastic. She seamlessly transitioned between dialects (French, Irish, northern carpetbagger, southern, slaves) and it really added to the experience.
Thanks but I am not sure reading it out loud in my British accent would have helped at all 😂
Shatterlings wrote: "Thanks but I am not sure reading it out loud in my British accent would have helped at all 😂" Ha, ha! Good point. I so would love to hear that, though.
I felt pretty satisfied. I feel the tragedies began to take hold of Scarlett's development in a way that was more pleasing and less annoying, at least for me. I was able to sit back and feel like there was some change happening and not just this character remaining as they were while the world around them turned and burned.I feel dissatisfied with how race and gender was handled, but I don't think these issues were ever going to be seriously addressed.
I must admit to feeling slightly uncomfortable with my level of schadenfreude regarding Scarlett. But, the last line kind of won me over... a little.
