Gone With The Wind

I am reading Gone With The Wind for the first time.  I saw the movie as a teenager and loved it, but for some reason it never occurred to me to read the book.  I don’t know why.  Usually that is the first thing I do if one is available.

Of course reading this makes me much more aware of everything southern, especially Atlanta, so I was thrilled to see actual photos from 1864 on The Antiques Road Show last night.

I understand this book has never been out of print and as I read it, I begin to understand why.  First of all it is a timeless love story, right up there with all the soap operas and popular potboilers people love today.  Scarlet is a woman most of us can identify with.

Who hasn’t dreamed of being the belle of the ball, the most beautiful, charming, irresistible person around?  Who also hasn’t had thoughts that were less than charitable about events that impact us personally? 

And woven in among all this angst and emotion is the story of our country at war with itself; a story that brings Sherman and Johnston and Hood to life, a book that makes the history books come alive with the way war deprives us of first the delicacies of life and later the essentials, drawing the best from most of us even if it isn’t Sunday school perfect.

I loved the movie, but frankly my dears, the book is better!