GONE WITH THE WIND is and will remain one of the great books of the last century.
I love the opening: "There was a land of cavaliers and cotton fields called the `Old South.' Here, in this pretty world, gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of knights and their ladies fair, of master and slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a civilization gone with the wind." If you read GWTW strictly as a love story, you're missing part of the picture, and I'm saying this as someone who DID read it as a love story many years ago at the age of twelve. And I don't mean just the surface historical picture either.It goes so much deeper.
Scarlett is of course the central character, and to me, a metaphor for the "New South", in that she compromises with the new circumstances in order to survive. Melanie appeared to me as a symbol of the "Old South"-but the part of it that had integrity and strength. They needed each other in order to survive, and it took Scarlett until the end of the book to realise this. Ashley is the part of the Old South that couldn't adjust. Rhett is the person who though he despised the old ways and all they stood for until age and time made him begin to realise what he had thrown away. He still had a cynicism about it, but he also had an appreciation for the charm of a time that would never be again. This is THE Southern novel, although there are some others that are must reads: TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD and the hysterical and moving BARK OF THE DOGWOOD-A tour of southern homes and gardens comes to mind. First, before you do anything, read this great novel-GWTW.
Amazon Book Review by Fargo K Jenkins
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