While browsing “1,000 Books to Read: A Life-Changing List,” by James Mustich, I came upon “Gone With the Wind,” by Margaret Mitchell. I’d seen the movie, which won several Academy Awards. The book had earned a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and sold over 30 million copies so I thought, “Why not?” I borrowed a copy from Curtis Memorial Library and plowed ahead. And plowed and plowed, reading the weighty tome in small doses, which necessitated renewing the book from the Library.
Here are my takeaways.
The book tells a most captivating story, highlighted by the shenanigans of the two main characters: Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. These two conniving narcissists deserved each other. While I rooted for neither one, I was determined to reach the end of the book when they’d part ways, or maybe not if Scarlett had her wish.
The book is set during and right after the Civil War, so the reader gets a sense of what it was like back then, at least from the point of view of the South. Ironically, neither Scarlett nor Rhett was a big fan of the War. Scarlett was upset that the War ended her chances to attend highfalutin balls and wear fancy clothes and flirt with suitors who were bewitched by her feminine charms (for reasons that elude me). Rhett, ever the pragmatist, saw the War as a way to make money, which meant dealing with the dreaded Yankees.
The other characters merely served as props: the hapless Ashley Wilkes who never really got his life together; his wife, the too-good-to-be-believable Melanie; and the loyal black maid Mammy, a caricature to the max.
But, a big but, there’s the unabashed racism, which oozes from every page. The repeated references to the “darkies.” The claims that the “darkies” wouldn’t know what to do if they were ever set free. The implication that the slaves were actually happy workers devoted to their masters. The casual references to the Ku Klux Kahn, as if it were a normal men’s social group and not a hate-driven mob squad. Neither Mitchell nor any of her characters ever called out the evils of slavery. I often found myself putting the book down and saying to Tina, “Can you believe this?” after a particularly noxious racist example.
And then there were those damned Yankees, the evildoers who had the audacity to question the sanctity of slavery and, even worse, who wanted to give black people the right to vote. Horrors!
In fairness, the unquestioning loyalty demonstrated by the Confederate soldiers and their womenfolk to the cause also took shots from Margaret Mitchell’s narrative. They were, according to the author, convinced that the South would win because they were superior to the Yankees in every way. They were wrong, of course, but that myth continued long after the War ended and, for some holdouts, even to this day.
I recall visiting the South back around 1960. One stewardess referred to me as “a Yankee,” and I heard more than one person boasting that “the South will rise again!”
The recent battle over the appropriateness of flying the Confederate Flag or showcasing statues of Confederate War heroes opened the deep psychic wounds of the conflict. To those who argue “But it’s part of our heritage,” I would counter that statues of Hitler and displays of the Nazi salute are part of Germany’s “heritage,” yet Germany has outlawed those painful reminders for decades.
Should “Gone With the Wind” be banned because of its racist tone? Absolutely not. This book provides a stark reminder of the South’s racist past. Moreover, I can’t help noting that the “Make America Great Again” slogan promulgated by Donald Trump echoes the “South Will Rise Again” clarion call. They share in common the wish that “people not like us” (“us” meaning white people) be marginalized and stripped of their power — or worse.
Am I glad I read “Gone With the Wind”? Well, I had to admire Mitchell’s ability to maintain my interest for 733 small-print pages, although the book could easily have been cut to 400 pages with no harm done. Moreover, her extensive research helped bring the Civil War to life. I was surprised to learn, incidentally, that Mitchell’s mother was a woman’s suffragist, a real progressive back in her day.
Pat Conroy, one of my favorite authors, said of the book: “The novel allows you to lose yourself in the glorious pleasures of reading itself, when all five senses ignite in the sheer happiness of narrative.”
Now it’s on to another long classic like, say, “Ulysses,” but then I’m not a masochist. Maybe I’ll tackle “War and Peace.” Or…maybe not.
David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns. dtreadw575@aol.com.
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