GONE WITH THE WIND BY MARGARET MITCHELL

Welcome to the world of books – Bookshelf! This bookshelf will tell you about scores of books that I have read, liked, not agreed with, enjoyed, etc. Books of all genres will be discussed, reviewed and celebrated here so that you can decide whether to add them to your collection or not! It is my take on how well the author has opened up the world of words to us, how fast our heart thumps with each turn of the page and how loud our soul sings after experiencing the book! To start, I have given my take on the book “Gone with the wind” a civil war classic by Margaret Mitchell:

You search some books, you pick some books at random but there are some books that you literally stumble across and feel like The Alibaba of the book treasures. It just opens a whole new world and you are left dazzled by the book. That is exactly how I felt after reading Gone with the wind after coming across it while searching for some other book. I had heard of it previously but seeing it listed under historical fiction decided against it. Boy, was I wrong?

Gone with the wind is a work of fiction (a brilliant work at that!) by Margaret Mitchell that mainly focuses on “the South” as it was called those days, i.e. the culture that prevailed in the States of Georgia, Atlanta and the plantations. Scarlett O Hara (the female lead) is a character that would grip you, anger you, amuse you and awe you all at the same time. She is a southern belly so unladylike that she could fit into New York or Mumbai of today and nobody would have batted an eyelid. She is feminine but not girly and is portrayed as a woman of gumption, a survivor, a woman who wants love and comfort above everything. Other female characters like Ashley’s wife, sister and Mammy are equally feisty even though not as open as Scarlett but all the same quite intriguing characters. Read the book and you just might go – Women, huh? :D

Scarlett yearns for Ashley, one of her many suitors but slaps him when he rejects her and goes on to marry his fiancé’s brother just to spite him. Her husband dies leaving her a widow but she doesn’t sit still, she lives full even after that by dancing, marrying twice again and handling a business all the while. Her third husband Rhett Butler is a rogue to the last letter of the word and is her only match. Their passion combined with the quick wit and cunningness of both Rhett and Scarlett makes for a nice cat and mouse game where the prey keeps changing. Scarlett’s infatuation with Ashley continues throughout the story amidst her marriages and the many tragedies that befall them including the death of Ashley’s wife Melanie, Scarlett’s child Bonnie, father and mother but it is in the end that she realizes that it was mere infatuation and not love. She realizes she truly loves Rhett but by then Rhett is no longer ready to go through the roller coaster again.  All in all, the book has all the required elements of love tangles, drama, action but with the history (civil war and reconstruction era) being just a rich background and not overwhelming the plot that revolves around survival at the basic.

All the characters right from Melanie to the black housekeeper Mammy are vividly portrayed with very clear boundaries that you can almost connect to each and every character even if they lived several centuries before us. The civil war is explained in a way that the war is an essential component of the book because of the many impacts it has on each character and in turn the plot. This is not a book about the American civil war; it is a book about how these particular characters are affected by the American civil war. It is as relevant now as it was when it was published and would probably remain relevant as long as there is passion and war in the world.

This book is a must read for everybody as it is about two very primal human instinct – Survival and love.
Gone with the wind – Will stay forever!

-Wanna-be-Savant