This was a 5/5 read. It took me about 3 months to read the whole thing, but it was worth every minute. Margaret Mitchell 100% deserved the Pulitzer Prize. I wish I could experience it again for the first time.
I went into this historical novel thinking it was going to be a beautiful love story (it is said to be the “greatest love story of all time”), and it was the complete opposite. It’s brutal, raw, and Scarlett O'Hara is emotionally incapable of experiencing love. It’s bold of Mitchell to make her main character so unlikable. The ending with the famous line “I don’t give a damn” was perfect. I honestly might reread the last chapter again. I think my favorite part of the novel is the timeline of life before, during, and after the civil war. It really could be considered a Great War novel as well. Though, I recognize it’s not at all accurate and romanticizes slavery and the south. It was hard to get through some of this, especially how she wrote the black characters’ dialogues and the reoccurring racial slurs. That being said, it was interesting to read someone’s perspective who thought this way. It made me think about how when we are in school we are mostly taught the civil war from the north perspective. The winning side gets to tell history, as they say.
I hope if you haven’t read it yet, you’ll give it a read. I enjoyed it a lot and will probably come back to it again. I would love to hear from others who also read it. Thanks!
by Excellent_Donkey8067
1 Comment
It was a beautiful book. Scarlett is a very complex character who grows into an amazingly strong woman but, as you say, never really becomes someone who is likeable. I think that the depiction of the south was interesting as well. I completely get the criticism of the depiction of slavery but as long as you keep in mind that it is being written from a historical (and wrong) perspective, the story itself is absolutely worth the read.