Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Readalong: GWTW Update


Susan | 4 comments Ok, now that I finished, chapter 1-7 of the read a long, I can now put my comments to paper, or in the blogger world, digital paper.  I have never read, Gone With the Wind before. I have seen the movie several times, considered my favorite of all time with Wizard of Oz.

The book is much better than the movie of course. It fills the historical holes I did not understand. It also enriched the book about the family history. Scarlet's father was a poor Irish immigrant, and made he's fortune coming to the United States.
 It never made sense why he did not have the southern manners, this explains it.

What she sees in Ashley I don't know. What a whimp. Both Ashley and Melanie deserve each other. They seem to be so emotional, and sugar and sweetness.
 Scarlet, is opposite, self centered,  compusive, and arrogant, she did not like books, and intellectual conversation bored her, especially politics, and the war.
Why throw yourself at him. This seems so totally out of character for Scarlet. She knew darn well, he was interested in marrying Melanie. The entire family knew that they marry cousins. Why fight it. I guess it was to prove she can change his mind and win, and her stubborness, and being a rebel.
She thought with her looks, she could win him over, and get her way. Was she just trying to prove something. Maybe she was not in love with Ashley, anyway.

She was looking for emotional suicide, I guess. I think I would have swallowed my pride, and went on to the next man.

I was shocked to find out that she became pregnant with Charles baby, her first marriage. Well, I will have to see how that plays out. If that makes a better story as a mother early on, or later. 
One of the other members felt maybe she was experiencing postpartum depression. Come now, she was mean and self centered before, maybe a little more emotional after the baby. But, she did not care about her son.  She was bad, bad, bad to the bone with or without post partum depression.

I was surprised with the ages. Could not believe Scarlet was 16, in the movie she looked like she was in her 20's.
Thank you for hosting, Kate at  Literary Explorations, I am enjoying discussing as we read, very different than a book club.

Now on to chapter 8.

1 comment:

Marie Cloutier said...

i guess in the movie, even in the 40s it would be hard to explain why she got married so young!