Scarlett

I've given this book a rare four stars as it's up there with the best books I've ever read. I picked up a lovely but unassuming 1951 edition from The Reprint Society for 30p at a book sale because I'd heard of the book, never seen the film, knew Clark Gable said "Quite frankly my dear, I don't give a damn", and thought I'd give it a go out of curiosity. I'm so glad I did.

What little I knew about GWTW portrayed it as a love story, not something I would usually read, so I was surprised to find that it is far more accurately described as a family saga set against the backdrop of war. The American Civil War is central to the story, partly for how it drives events, but also as a destructive global event that shows up Scarlett for the self-centred superficial diva she is. It's far from a history book about the war but there is lots of information to be had and it put flesh on the bare bones of my knowledge (I'm British and have never studied the American Civil War). I was looking up maps of the United States, looking up definitions of unfamiliar terms, and finding many pennies dropping into place about how the US developed over the next 80 years. I found that element of the book absolutely fascinating.

Margaret Mitchell has created an exceptionally convincing character in Scarlett O'Hara, whom you love to hate but have to admire, a wee bit grudgingly, as the book goes on. She's the girl you hated at school, the pain in the arse in the office, the competitive mum in the playground and every other woman who has ever had you grinding your teeth. However you see very clearly that she was bred to be that way (although efforts to instill some genuine manners and kindness fell on hard ground because Scarlett is a hard person) because being on top socially meant bagging the best husband and securing your future. In Scarlett's case the war intervened, and as society and the economy around Atlanta unravelled you see Scarlett having to draw on her hardness and selfishness to survive, quite literally. She has to throw off the social expectations of both her peers and the slaves at Tara in order to raise it up again from the dregs left to her after the Yankees swept through. Everything was literally gone with the wind.

Slavery is another pillar of the story. Attitudes towards it were central to the war and weren't straightforward within the southern states or within the black communities, before or after emancipation. Many of the difficulties during Reconstruction centred around Republican manipulation of freed slaves in order to gain votes. The moral dilemma is clear, but it's shocking to hear characters you otherwise consider 'good' using terms for black people that make us wince today and considering themselves benign slave owners.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It falls short of five starts only because I feel about three quarters of the way through the book Scarlett's scandalising of society by working and swanking about with the incomers to Atlanta and then using Rhett's money to climb to the top of the harps on the same point for rather too long. The book is already 800 pages long and the point had long been made. Maybe Margaret Mitchell wanted us to feel the tedium that others felt about Scarlett's showing off and inability to know when enough was enough. Read the book.