Gone With the Wind: Problematic, But Still Wonderful

The lovely 75th Anniversary edition.

Possibly the ultimate in Big Fat American Novels, I first read Gone With the Wind as a youngster, in the sixth grade; I'd seen the movie when it first aired on network TV in the 1970s, which was a huge television event. I've since read it at least a dozen times but it has been at least 20 years since my previous re-read. I did get a lovely hardcover edition as a holiday gift a few years ago but never got around to re-reading it until recently, inspired by  by the GWTW Readalong hosted by The Book Corps and by another recent read, Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind Letters," which I finished for the TBR Pile Challenge. 

As nearly everyone knows, GWTW was published in 1936 and was a runaway best-seller, and was adapted into the most successful movie of all time. The novel is more than 1000 pages long, but basically, GWTW chronicles the story of fiery Georgia debutante Scarlett O'Hara during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and her undying love for the dreamy blond and bookish Ashley Wilkes. To Scarlett's chagrin Ashley marries his cousin, the sweet, saintly Melanie Hamilton, so in a fit of pique, Scarlett marries Melanie's brother, the shy Charles. Scarlett and Melanie are thus tied together during and after the War, and Scarlett must use her wits and bravery for them to survive, along with the O'Hara family's plantation, Tara. Scarlett also has a love-hate relationship with the dashing profiteer and scoundrel Rhett Butler, in what is one of American literature's greatest tragic love stories. 

It's always really hard for me to re-visit a favorite book from my childhood -- what if it doesn't stand up the test of time? Some books are just as good or even better (like To Kill a Mockingbird) and some are truly disappointing. For me, GWTW was a really mixed re-read. As always, I find the characters indelible and the story of spunky Scarlett so compelling -- she truly is a feminist icon. However, reading it decades later, I was constantly aware of the more problematic aspects of the book. Mitchell depicts the African-American characters as mostly lovable but childlike and easily manipulated by those terrible Yankees (with the exception of Mammy); also, it definitely perpetuates the romanticized, racist version of The Good Old South in which white people know best and all the African-Americans are happy and well-cared for, glossing over the fact that all the rich white folks are living off wealth accumulated by the suffering of generations of slaves. 

The same mass-market paperback edition as I read in 6th grade. 

Mine is equally tattered, I'm sure it's still packed away somewhere in storage. 

There's also lot of usage of the n-word and variations which made me really uncomfortable. Ashley Wilkes is the only character who seems to think Emancipation is a good idea and he's depicted as a dreamy and unrealistic. Scarlett is a feminist and I'm always rooting for her survival, but she is NOT a nice character -- she's really selfish and self-centered, and often cruel. Also, sometimes Mitchell's prose is a little flowery, and there are passages in which she digresses with battle scenes and background of Reconstruction history that definitely romanticize the white Southerners as victims. Um, no. 

However, it's a fascinating story with a great plot and great characters, and I found myself really enjoying the re-read, despite all my issues with the book. (Scarlett is definitely what I would call a fascinating train wreck). I still wish I knew what happened to Scarlett and Rhett Butler. Sadly, Mitchell never wrote a sequel nor left any hints about their fate before her untimely death in 1949.  It is a great, sprawling historical epic and I do still love it, despite its flaws.

 I'm counting it as my 20th Century Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The reason I really started reading classics about ten years ago was because I realized there were so many authors I'd never read -- I managed to graduate from high school without ever reading anything by Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, or Hemingway! (Though in my defense, I did read War and Peace.) One of the few classics I did read in college was Jane Eyre, which I absolutely loved. It's also one of those books I turn to for comfort during hard times. This summer I had a tough move from Texas to Germany, and Jane Eyre was there for me when I needed something familiar.

I'm sure most everyone knows the basic story, but without spoilers, here's the setup: orphaned Jane Eyre lives with her horrible aunt and cousins until they send her off to boarding school, which also starts out horribly, but gets better. Eventually, she becomes a governess for the ward of mysterious Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. She falls in love with him (naturally) but things are not as they seem.

It had been several years since I'd read Jane Eyre, and I still loved it this time around, but there were parts of it that I didn't like as well as in my youth. I still love Jane, but I found myself much more critical of Rochester and his behavior -- he was really manipulative and dishonest and some of the things he did to Jane were pretty unforgivable. Of course there are amazing coincidences, which are present in many Victorian novels so I feel as though that's to be expected. I did find parts of the story dragged, and there's a sub-plot about another possible romance for Jane that made me want to throw the book across the room.

I first read this book as part of a literature class my first semester in college, and it's been so long that I hardly remember what all the metaphors were. I realize the book must have been ground-breaking for its time regarding the portrayal of women in Victorian times, and that Jane is a symbol of empowerment, but some of the symbolism is a little over the top for me.  And I'm sure I find it less romantic than I did years ago. I suppose it's inevitable that books affect you in different ways once you get older. 

If you've read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, it's pretty obvious that she was influenced by Jane Eyre (though apparently she claims she wasn't; if anyone has evidence one way or the other, please let me know in the comments.) I've read Rebecca many, many times and it's one of my all-time favorites. I'm sure this may cause outrage but I honestly think I actually prefer Rebecca! In fact, it might be time for another re-read since it's October and I always want to read mysterious Gothic literature this time of year. 

Bloggers, do you prefer Jane Eyre or Rebecca? And how do you feel when you re-read books you loved when you were younger? Do they stand the test of time? 

I'm counting this as my Classic Re-Read from School for the Back to the Classics Challenge. Only three books left to go!

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Here is a book that many people hate, and yet, it is one of my favorite books of all time.  Sadly, the people who hate this book were most likely forced to read it in high school.  I often bemoan the fact that I came to love many classics later in life, but I've also come to realize that if I had read this in high school English, it's quite likely I would have hated it as well (probably because the American Authors teacher was a terror; I took World Lit because I'd had that teacher for composition sophomore year and really liked him).  At any rate, I was happy reading Candide and 1984 (though The Mill on the Floss was a BIG mistake on my part) and my friends were suffering through The Scarlet Letter.

Nevertheless, I finally found Edith Wharton about seven years ago.  I read The Age of Innocence while on vacation in the Florida panhandle, but somehow, it didn't do much for me.   I really didn't get how wonderful Edith Wharton was until I read House of Mirth about a year later, which I could hardly put down.  Soon after I read Ethan Frome in a single sitting, and I've loved it ever since.  Since then I've enjoyed more Wharton, a writer who can write both heartbreaking novels, ghost stories, and wry and witty short stories -- if you don't believe me, just Google "Xingu" and try to read it without cracking a smile.

But, back to Ethan Frome.  If you don't know the story, basically, it is about a young man trapped in terrible circumstances.  (If you haven't read Wharton, this is pretty much the theme of her entire oeuvre.)  Told with a framing device, in flashback and conjecture, we learn that when Ethan was in his late 20s, he was trapped in a marriage with an older woman, Zenobia, a shrewish hypochondriac.  To help out, Zeena's distant cousin, Mattie Silver, had come to live with them, and Ethan is in love with her.  Once Ethan had a promising future as an engineer or scientist, but he's saddled with debts on a farm he can't sell, and now there's really no way out for him and Mattie.  Over the course of a few days, his life takes a tragic and ironic turn.

I chose this book for the January read for one of our book groups, and I think it was a good choice.  It's a short read, about 150 pages in most editions, and there's so much to discuss -- loaded with symbolism and great characterization.  Also, Wharton is just masterful at setting the scene.  I live in south Texas where we rarely get a hard freeze, much less a dusting of snow, and I just felt freezing cold while reading this book.  It brought back a lot of memories of winters I've spent in the Midwest -- about ten years ago we were stationed in Nebraska, and this story could have easily been relocated to the bleak, windy prairies.

I love Ethan Frome, but it always makes me wonder why I'm so attracted to it.  What does it say about me, if I love Wharton -- her stories are so tragic!   She does tend to write variations on the same story over and over, but she does it so well.  I've read about about seven of her novels, and I've loved most of them.  Sadly, I can only think of one that has a happy ending -- and that was her unfinished novel, The Buccaneers, which was finished by another author based on Wharton's notes.

I still have Twilight Sleep and The Glimpses of the Moon on the TBR shelves, plus The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, an NYRB Classic.  I want to read at least one of these this year.   There's a chance I may even get to visit Wharton's estate, The Mount, in the Berkshires this summer -- but that's still in the planning stages.

So, who else is a fan of Edith Wharton?  Do you love Ethan Frome, or hate it?  And has anyone been to The Mount?

This is the first book I've completed for the Back to the Classics 2013 Challenge.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

"Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of every day a source of bitter disappointment." 

Of Human Bondage is one of the very first classics I ever read for pleasure, and I still love it.  I first read it when I was eighteen, a freshman in college.  It was forced upon me by a boy in my dorm, who lived down the hall and on whom I had an enormous crush.  He insisted I take it home over Christmas break and read it.  How could I refuse?  Well, I did end up loving the book, though things never worked out between the two of us.

Years later, I've read lots more classics for pleasure, including several by Maugham, but I never picked it up again -- I had so many other books I wanted to read!  It's actually been so long since I read it that I could barely remember the story any more.  I didn't even remember how it ended!   Finally, I decided it was time for a reread.  Last fall we nominated books for 2012 our classics group at the library, and I put this on my list -- I wanted so much to discuss it with other people!  Well, wouldn't you know it, things came up and I had to miss the discussion, but I couldn't resist reading the book again anyway (I also added it to my Classics Club and Chunkster Challenge lists).  And I am pleased to report that I still loved this book the second time around, maybe even more so than the first time.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, it's a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story, loosely based on the life of the author W. Somerset Maugham.  (It's a long book, so I'll try to give the setup without too many spoilers). The main character is Philip Carey, a young man growing up with a clubfoot in the late Victorian period.  He's orphaned as a small boy and sent to live with his uncle, a strict vicar in a small town in Kent.  His aunt is kind but doesn't know much about raising children.  Philip is a bright boy but mostly bullied by his schoolmates because of his disability, and his teachers seem pretty heartless.

However, Philip is a bright boy, and when he's older, he goes off to boarding school, and his teachers expect great things of him.  His uncle expects him to go off to Oxford and then take orders, but Philip has doubts about religion.  Instead, he goes to Germany for a year to study before returning to England.  Philip has a small inheritance, and tries various professions. He spends two years as an art student in Paris before he realizes he'll never be anything but a mediocre artist, so he finally decides to follow in his late father's footsteps and become a doctor.

One fateful night in a cafe, Philip meets a waitress named Mildred, and it's the beginning of an obsessive relationship.  Mildred is really toxic, one of the most obnoxious characters I've ever met in literature.  The book deals with their relationship and Philip's personal growth along the way.   Will Philip marry this horrible woman?  Will she put him in the poorhouse with her greed?   "He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her.  He would rather have misery with one than happiness with the other."

Bette Davis as Mildred and Leslie Howard as Philip in the 1934 film adaptation

This book is more than 600 pages, but I breezed through it in about five days.  I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen, though I did have to grit my teeth and power through a few times -- Mildred is so awful, I really wanted to reach into the book and throttle her!  And Philip deserved a few good smacks upside the head a couple of times too.  But I really did love this book.  Philip's personal journey is really interesting and I got really caught up with it emotionally, I was really on the edge of my seat.  And I found the writing to be just wonderful and insightful.  Apparently Maugham considered himself among the best of the second-rate writers, but I disagree.  I kept finding passages throughout the book that I loved, and kept marking them with sticky notes (since I hate writing in my books).

I also loved reading about Philip's year in Germany, and his attempts to be an artist.  A couple of times Philip mentions a stockbroker fellow who chucked it all to be an artist in the South Seas, which is obviously Paul Gauguin -- who shows up in his 1919 novel, The Moon and Sixpence -- another Maugham novel which I read years ago and have essentially forgotten.  I'll have to reread that one again as well.

Has anyone else read this book?  Did you love it as much as me?  Any more Maugham you can recommend?  And have any of you reread a favorite classic after a long period?  Did you still love it or was it just not the same?

Ten Books I Really Want to Re-Read

Inspired by Kristin's list on We Be Reading, I started thinking about rereads.  I think the only downside to reading book blogs is that I learn about so many wonderful books that my TBR list is getting enormous.  I spend so much time reading and think about these new books, I never seem to make time to re-read my old favorites, unless it's for a book group.

I'm actually about to start re-reading Love in the Time of Cholera for a book discussion group next week -- sometimes I don't reread books for discussions, but it's been so long since I read it I've forgotten most of it.  It's been almost 20 years since I read this book, so does it really count as a reread?  (I'm also leading the discussion, so I definitely want it to be fresh in my mind before the meeting).

Here are the top ten books I want to re-read, when I have time.   (Ha!)

1.  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I have to get this one done by May 4th!

2.  Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.  I fell in love with Maugham's work all over again when I read The Painted Veil for my classics book group.  Of Human Bondage was one of the first classics I ever read for pleasure -- it was foisted on me by a guy who lived down the hall in my dorm freshman year.  He insisted I take it home and read it over the Christmas break, and since I had an enormous crush on him, I obeyed.  I ended up loving the book, though things never did work out with the guy.

3.  Watership Down by Richard Adams.  I loved this when I was a teenager, but I haven't read it since.  I'd love to know if it has stood the test of time.

4.  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.  Another favorite from middle school and high school, I first read it in sixth grade.  I used to read it over and over but it's been years since the last read.

5.  Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.  I've seen the movies multiple times but I've only actually read the book once.  I need to reread it before I go to the JASNA annual meeting in October.

6.  Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel.  I've been taking Spanish classes for the past year so I want to read more Latino literature, and it would be fun to reread this (definitely in English, my Spanish still isn't that good!).  I remember loving it and the movie adaptation was excellent.

7.  Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.  I thought this was hilarious, so I recommended it to Amanda at The Zen Leaf for our reading swap.  I want to reread it and see if it's as funny as I remember.

8.  West with the Night by Beryl Markham.  Another book I chose for my book swap with Amanda.  I remember loving it so much I read it really slowly because I didn't want it to end.  She didn't like it as much as I did so I want to reread it and see if it's just as good the second time around.

9.  Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.  I recently reread Jane Eyre for the first time in years, now I want to reread this one too.  It's one of the only prequels/sequels to classic lit I really like.

10. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  After my initial reading of Love in the Time, I was inspired to read more Garcia Marquez. It's one the three novellas in his Collected Novellas which has been sitting on the TBR shelf since my husband gave it to me before we were married, so I've probably had this unread more than twenty years!  I really should just sit down and finish the whole thing, shouldn't I?

So do you find you push your rereads aside in favor of new books because of blogging?  Or do you just hear about so many new books that you don't have time for the old favorites?  What would you reread if you had the chance?