I haven't posted a link to a column in a while so thought I would share this most recent one.
A while back Kelly posted a review of the novel Gone With the Wind. It occurred to me that I had never read it, and Kelly's excellent summary, as I say in my column, piqued my interest.
Since I'm doing the occasional book review in my weekly column now, I decided I would write about it. It's really not a review but, rather, a summary of some of my impressions. It's a classic story but certainly would lack political correctness today. I could and would never defend against any of the criticisms.
But it's a page-turner, that's for sure, and I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys a great story with characters that seem to leap off the page. If you read it, enjoy it for that, and look past any statement Margaret Mitchell might or might not have been making.
http://www.brentwoodhomepage.com/bob-mckinney-what-i-know-267/
6 comments:
Love your thoughts on the book and wish we could sit down and discuss it in detail. We could let our spouses weigh in, too. Mine had a favorite derogatory term he used to refer to Scarlet the whole time he was reading it. You can imagine! He skipped Conroy's forward, but I found it fascinating and it made me all the more anxious to jump right into the book. Melanie was a character I honestly didn't care for in the movie, but she was one of my favorites in the book.
So glad you enjoyed it.
Yes I probably had the same term for Scarlett! But obviously Mitchell was not trying to create a likable character -- it was all about survival. And you have to admire her smarts. And oh how I loved Pat Conroy's intro!
I enjoyed reading your column!
GWTW is a book I've never had much interest in reading it, and the page amount kept it at a distance. I am quite intrigued though now that both you and Kelly have read it recently and enjoyed it. I guess I always figured I wouldn't care for it, but maybe I would.
Kimberly, thanks. I would offer a couple of disclaimers: first, this is probably of greater interest to me because I'm a southerner. Much like what Conroy said in his intro that I quoted, I grew up hearing quotes from this book and references to the characters. Second, please understand I am in no way offering a defense to the author's subliminal (and not so subliminal) message about issues pertaining to the Civil War and the terminology used.
I read a lot of classics in my younger years but this wasn't one of them. I'm about 20 years into my non-fiction reading streak and I always promise that if I ever run out of good non-fiction books to read, I'll go back and hit some of the classics that I missed. Judging from the size of my "yet to be read" BOOKCASE, it's not going to happen in the next few years.
I'm a southerner, but haven't read Gone with the Wind.
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