Gone With the Wind

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Shelle
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Re: Gone with the Wind-Novel-readers AND movie-watchers

Post by Shelle »

I read the book in high school before watching the movie. I agree - there are so many differences! Of course I liked the book better than the movie, but understand the necessity to pare the story down for the big screen. The summer after I read (and watched) the story I had a job that was mostly outdoor manual labor (lots of mowing lawns and reading). In the afternoons when my walkman batteries would be dead (yep, I'm old enough to have had a walkman in high school) I would actually envision the scenes missing from the movie and think about how I would direct them, cast them, etc.... Yeah, I was totally the nerdy, dorky girl in high school, but GWTW gave me lots to think about on summer afternoons!
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fabulasaule
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Post by fabulasaule »

I loved the book, I didn't see the movie but I saw some short episodes on youtube and I think it is a bit different from the book. It is strange that nobody is trying to make a new one. It would be interesting to see it.
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JennyKp
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Post by JennyKp »

I did read this as a teenager many years ago. I have to say I have watched the film many times and have it on my TV planner locked so it is not accidentally deleted. The film version made in the 1940's is brilliant with Vivian Lee playing Scarlett. I love it!
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Post by j jagelovicz »

I remember watching this movie for the first time when I was around 12 years old. I read the book a few years later and I'm even more in love with that story now than I was then. I love the the time era it's set in, I love the characters, I love everything about it. Scarlett and Rhett are phenomenal characters. I think the way Mitchell describes Scarlett's character is amazing. She's a very complicated person and is very naive and childish while also being very knowledgable about certain aspects of life and being able to adapt with the changes she has to face in life after the war. I agree with a previous post in that I don't believe she was meant to be villainous or heroic. I feel she's a character who was created to show the complexities of human beings and how we struggle and adapt, love and fight, win and lose. She wasn't meant to be a person you aspired to be like, but rather a character to learn from. She made many mistakes, took people for granted, used and abused those who loved her most dearly, all to get what she felt was most important in life, instead of realizing, until it was too late, that the most important things are actually the people who genuinely love and care about you and want to stand beside you in life. Throughout the entire book she was happy thinking she was independent and didn't need anyone to make her happy, when in reality she was failing to realize it was the company of the people who loved her that made her life memorable. Life without love is lonely and miserable. I also read the sequel by Alexandra Ripley and was appalled. I don't even have words to describe how horrible I thought it was. The characters were awful, the plot was horrible, and the characters were changed so drastically in their personalities that they were completely different people. I've decided,for myself, to just forget the sequel completely. I'd rather remember Scarlett in her last moments of the book, making the decision to go home to Tara and try to figure out a way to get Rhett back than to remember the horrible reunion they had in Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley.
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alwaysdaddygirl
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Post by alwaysdaddygirl »

Aloha,

Love the book! The reasons are the history of the south during that time, characters, and storyline. It been a couple years since I read it. I will re-read it soon.

Blessings?,
RM Griffin
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denyala
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Post by denyala »

I love all the discussion I'm reading about this great book. If you'd like to discuss it on reddit, there's a subreddit for it! It's pretty quiet but I'd love to discuss GWTW with you! Just search Gone With the Wind :)

We're doing a reading chapter by chapter soon and I think it could be fun!
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Post by elanger333 »

I read Gone with the Wind, and have never been able to watch the movie since! However, I found myself more intrigued by Melanie, Belle, and Rhett than by Scarlett. Even though Scarlett made me laugh, I thought that Melanie had a kindness and a strength about her that wasn't really portrayed in the movie. I never read Scarlett, but I guess that's just because its by a different author.
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Post by mommyreadsbooks »

I absolutely love Gone With The Wind. I love the book, I love the movie (Oh Clark Gable) , I love it all. I read the book at least once a year and every year, usually the day before Thanksgiving (so get ready) they play the movie a few times on AMC, I have this tradition that while I am working on Thanksgiving food I watch the movie. I hope that one day my daughter will share the love of this amazing book and we can enjoy it together.
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bookworm518
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Post by bookworm518 »

It has been years since I read Gone With the Wind and I would love to read it again to see if I see things differently than I did all those years ago. I remember thinking that Scarlett was a spoiled rotten brat, at the beginning of the book but she was forced to grow up. Of course, she didn't loose all of her bratty ways and it caused angst for those who were around her. Scarlett was selfish and immature and I'm not really sure she changed completely by the end of the book. But then again, would any of us be any different than she was if our entire way of living changed unexpectedly before our very eyes?

I did read the sequel to Gone with the Wind and even though the story was good, to me the book didn't have the same tone as GWTW. Is this good or bad? I guess that depends on how attached you felt to the classic by Margaret Mitchell. I would have been fine without the sequel because the way GWTW ended I could imagine the future for Scarlett and Rhett that I wanted them to have.
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Dashkova
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Post by Dashkova »

elanger333 wrote:I read Gone with the Wind, and have never been able to watch the movie since!
SAME. It's a shame because I loved the movie, I mean I technically still do, but the book is just SO much richer than the movie, the movie just feels like a commercial for the book. There's just no comparison IMO.
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Post by Joyful »

I love this book. I originally read it in school because they talked about it in the Outsiders. I am so glad I did. I really enjoy the interplay of characters. The relationships they form both good and bad. I find that the books I love the most have fully formed characters. Gone with the wind certainly has them.

Every time I read it I find myself cheering for a different character. The book seems to change with the changing stages of my life.

Also Rhett Butler! I mean who doesn't love a bad boy?
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TMR-Virtual Oracle
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Post by TMR-Virtual Oracle »

GWTW is hands down one of my favorite novels and I have also read it several times over the years, and watched the movie. And, yes, I have also read Scarlett and watched the movie. I agree, that the characters created by Margaret Mitchell (whom we all fell in love with) do not seem to flow over seamlessly to the characters being recreated by Alexandra Ripley in the sequel. There is something missing which I could never put my finger on but I did truly enjoy the sequel simply because Ripley carried everything over to Ireland and we were introduce to the O'Hara's. The story is beautifully written with wonderful imagery regarding the landscapes and what life was like over in Ireland at that time. Although, there is definitely no comparison to the original, I would recommend reading the sequel just for the sake of knowing Ripley's version of what happened after Rhett left Sharlett.

I would also be interested to read the other book that was mentioned from Rhett's perspective, I am sure that would be interesting to go deeper inside of the mind of Rhett Butler.
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HarshmanM
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Post by HarshmanM »

I don't think it's really a spoiler, and it's been a while since I read it, but......In GWTW everything was so real about the characters and events that it was like I was there......Scarlett was just a good book to read. (If that makes any sense) It didn't have the same feel or depth to it that GWTW had. I guess that's the best way of putting it. If I had never read GWTW it would have been a good book, but having been so enamored of GWTW, it just wasn't the same.....left me feeling like I was missing something, maybe?[/quote]

GWTW was so real, and I felt with the sequel it lacked the feel and depth perhaps because the author had only the original book to base her characters. Though she was approved (or however that works) by Margaret Mitchell's estate she didn't have the same insight to the characters as Margaret Mitchell which resulted in the sequel lacking that very important "something" that none of seem to be able to put our finger on. That being said, if I had never fallen in love with the original characters I wouldn't have been so dissapointed in the sequel.
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caliwagon18
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Post by caliwagon18 »

This is my all time favorite novel. I actually named my daughter after Scarlett O'Hara. I personally love the book because of its representation of the South. You don't hear about the Civil War from this side of a Confederate. I think it gives a gentler few of the South in that time. You always hear about how you only hear the winners side when it comes to war. I think this book gives us a glimpse into the side of the loser. It's amazing to read about how a true Southerner felt before, during, and after the war. It makes the plantation owners seem human, and not just like a cruel, heartless, monster.
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Jesse-review09
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Post by Jesse-review09 »

Gone with the wind is a gripping novel, I have read it several times. The movie is ten times better than the book (we all know that) and when I started reading it for the first time I just couldn't put it down, it was great.

-- 05 Dec 2016, 01:53 --

I mean the book is ten times better then the movie!!!!
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