Fiddle dee dee! GWTW and other Southern Novels

[SmithW6079]

16 minutes ago, Starleigh said:

I don't remember that! Was it mentioned in the book early on?

I just looked it up (thanks, Kindle!). Haiti is mentioned three times: when we learn of Ellen's background at the beginning of the book (her parents fled the 1791 Haitian revolution); later on, when Scarlett is remembering family stories to draw strength: "Great-grandfather Prudhomme who carved a small kingdom out of the dark jungles of Haiti, lost it, and lived to see his name honored in Savannah"; and in a discussion with Grandma Fontaine, but that's not about the family.

Edited June 30, 2021 by SmithW6079

[RealHousewife]

I want to read GWTW. I loved the movie, but the length of the book intimidates me. I have no idea how long it would take for me to finish it. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by RealHousewife

[BlackberryJam]

55 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

I want to read GWTW. I loved the movie, but the length of the book intimates me. I have no idea how long it would take for me to finish it. 

...you can skim over the war parts. It is a book written from the Southern POV for the Civil War, and you can Wikipedia the battles, and just get to the characters' in the aftermath. 

Maybe I'm old, but I no longer feel obligated to read every word of a novel. 

[peacheslatour]

57 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

I want to read GWTW. I loved the movie, but the length of the book intimates me. I have no idea how long it would take for me to finish it. 

It's so well written, you would not be able to stop once you get started. The first time I read it, I dragged it around everywhere I went. I was in sixth grade and I took it to school and read it during recess.

[sugarbaker design]

1 minute ago, peacheslatour said:

I was in sixth grade and I took it to school and read it during recess.

That is such a lovely picture!

[RealHousewife]

1 minute ago, BlackberryJam said:

...you can skim over the war parts. It is a book written from the Southern POV for the Civil War, and you can Wikipedia the battles, and just get to the characters' in the aftermath. 

Maybe I'm old, but I no longer feel obligated to read every word of a novel. 

That's a good idea! Maybe it's a bit OCD of me, but for some reason it's always been my style to read books in their entirety. I'm not like that with articles and whatnot. I need to become more flexible with books. 

1 minute ago, peacheslatour said:

It's so well written, you would not be able to stop once you get started. The first time I read it, I dragged it around everywhere I went. I was in sixth grade and I took it to school and read it during recess.

Thank you for the feedback! Btw, I've always loved your profile picture. I think Vivien Leigh is one of the prettiest humans ever to live. I'm in awe of her beauty when I watch GWTW. There was just something about her. 

[peacheslatour]

8 minutes ago, RealHousewife said:

That's a good idea! Maybe it's a bit OCD of me, but for some reason it's always been my style to read books in their entirety. I'm not like that with articles and whatnot. I need to become more flexible with books. 

Thank you for the feedback! Btw, I've always loved your profile picture. I think Vivien Leigh is one of the prettiest humans ever to live. I'm in awe of her beauty when I watch GWTW. There was just something about her. 

Thank you! I looked at a lot of pictures before I chose that one. It came down to that or a picture of a great eared nightjar.

 

[Starleigh]

6 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

It's so well written, you would not be able to stop once you get started. The first time I read it, I dragged it around everywhere I went. I was in sixth grade and I took it to school and read it during recess.

Yep, it's addictive. The first time I read it, I was 13. I took it out of the school library, started reading it in the afternoon after school and basically stayed up all night reading it. Like, literally. Kept reading till I finished it at 5 A.M. I'm sure I skimmed large swathes of the historical parts but the story between Scarlett and Rhett kept me mesmerized. 

[andromeda331]

52 minutes ago, Starleigh said:

Yep, it's addictive. The first time I read it, I was 13. I took it out of the school library, started reading it in the afternoon after school and basically stayed up all night reading it. Like, literally. Kept reading till I finished it at 5 A.M. I'm sure I skimmed large swathes of the historical parts but the story between Scarlett and Rhett kept me mesmerized. 

That's pretty much what I read. I had to pick a book from a list in middle school to read and write a report on. I picked it because I had seen the movie and didn't know it was a really big book. The Scarlett and Rhett were the best parts.  Never did figure out why Scarlett was so into Ashley. I do feel bad about her two other kids. 

[Snow Apple]

I read it in college and was shocked how easy it was to read. I say go for it. You can always stop if you're not into it. Like a previous poster, I learned I don't have to read every word or even finish a book.

[Starleigh]

Just put a library hold on the book "Truly Madly" by Stephen Galloway, about Vivien Leigh and her passionate affair with Laurence Olivier. The excerpt that I read focused on their relationship set against the backdrop of GWTW filming, so of course I immediately felt a deep need to read it😄

[SmithW6079]

On 2/14/2022 at 10:27 PM, andromeda331 said:

Never did figure out why Scarlett was so into Ashley.

It was a girlhood crush that she never outgrew. I'm currently rereading the book (again!). This is from the scene where Scarlett has sneaked into Melanie's room to read Ashley's letters:

Her emotions toward him had not changed since the day when she first fell in love with him. They were the same emotions that struck her speechless that day when she was fourteen years old and she had stood on the porch of Tara and seen Ashley ride up smiling, his hair shining silver in the morning sun. Her love was still a young girl's adoration for a man she could not understand.... He was still a young girl's dream of the perfect knight.

The war interrupted what would have eventually been a maturing past the crush, I bet, especially when Melanie became mistress of Twelve Oaks, and Scarlett was forced to see her and Ashley regularly. 

**

Someone upthread mentioned India Wilkes having no "job skills," except she does. We don't know for how long, but she became mistress of Twelve Oaks after her mother died and had to have been managing the household with her father, just as Ellen was the real manager of Tara.

[Starleigh]

Yeah, if the war hadn't happened, she definitely would have gotten past her crush. She probably would have been stuck married to Charles, though. Unless they had a longer engagement (no war bride pressure) and she would have come to her senses and broken it off.

[Oosala]

On 2/16/2021 at 9:30 PM, Starleigh said:

I agree with you on Rhett and Scarlett not getting back together. When I was a much younger (romantically obsessed) reader, I did think so.  But as an adult reader, I read the ending as totally different--not just disillusionment on Rhett's part, but total exhaustion with the drama.

And the so very sad thing to remember is that, after Melanie's death, and seeing Ashley's helplessness about losing her, Scarlett finally realizes that her true love was Rhett and not Ashley.  She runs home in the fog, through her recurring dreamscape, to the place she knows she'll be safe, and that is home with Rhett.  And of course, by that point, they are at "cross purposes" and it's too late.

When I was a little girl, I read GWTW every summer.  I have vivid memories of lying on a blanket out in the back yard, just drinking it in all afternoon.  I also remember Scarlett's mother's back story of being in love with a French man but being forced to marry the rough, gruff, Irish Gerald O'Hara.  And when Ellen O'Hara dies, she cries out the name of her French lover.  SO romantic to a young girl.

I feel guilty about all of this, and my love for the book, because of the inherent racism in GWTW.  But I did recognize this at an early age because, after all, the Klan were the GOOD guys.  Oh, cruel dichotomy.

[Oosala]

On 2/25/2021 at 8:37 AM, peacheslatour said:

That time they got caught embracing at the lumber yard, Scarlett said there was no heat in that embrace, just two old friends who had been through hell together.

That really ticked me off when I was a young girl.  The ONE time Scarlett is innocent with Ashley, the famous/infamous India Wilkes catches them in an embrace, which leads to Scarlett wearing that amazing RED dress and Melanie embracing her as a sister.

[SmithW6079]

18 hours ago, Oosala said:

I also remember Scarlett's mother's back story of being in love with a French man but being forced to marry the rough, gruff, Irish Gerald O'Hara.  And when Ellen O'Hara dies, she cries out the name of her French lover.  SO romantic to a young girl.

Ellen wasn't forced to marry Gerald.  He made an offer for her hand, but she was in love with Phillipe Robillard, who was her cousin. He was considered unsuitable for her, probably because he was a "bad boy" (he dies in a barroom brawl after all). 

When she learns of his death, she declares she will marry Gerald or join a convent. Apparently, to the Robillards, a daughter who was a nun was worse than one who married an upstart Irishman almost 30 years older than she was.

It just occurred to me -- in some ways, Ellen was arrested in her love for Phillipe just as Scarlett was arrested in her love for Ashley.  Maybe Scarlett was more like her mother than she knew.

[Oosala]

44 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

Ellen wasn't forced to marry Gerald.  He made an offer for her hand, but she was in love with Phillipe Robillard, who was her cousin. He was considered unsuitable for her, probably because he was a "bad boy" (he dies in a barroom brawl after all).

Thanks for the clarification.  I remember Gerald feeling so lucky that this "true lady" had consented to marry him, a lowly Irishman.

[SmithW6079]

1 hour ago, Oosala said:

Thanks for the clarification.  I remember Gerald feeling so lucky that this "true lady" had consented to marry him, a lowly Irishman.

I reread it not too long ago, so it's still fresh in my head. Gerald fell in love with Ellen for many reasons, and while Ellen probably was fond of him in a way (as much as she could be, since it appears she no longer felt passion for anything after Philippe's death).