Gone With the Wind Read-Along: Chapters 19-27

This book just keeps on rolling! I thought last week's section was eventful, but this week's was so much more so.

I really grew to like Scarlett during this portion of the book. For the first five or six chapters, she was still pretty selfish, but she came into her own later on. She has to take charge and lead everyone out of Atlanta as the Union soldiers come into town, she has to get them to Tara and she has to take charge and run Tara because no one else can. She actually stops being petrified of hard work (Even though she resists it for as long as she can manage) and she stops whining about the little inconveniences.

Mitchell says that Scarlett reaches a point of no return; from this moment on she will never be the same. I hope that's true, because I enjoyed seeing Scarlett as a strong, not just a smart-mouthed, woman able to take care of things on her own.

There was a lot more tension and drama in this portion of the book, also. Melanie goes through a hard labor, there's a lot of fighting around Atlanta, the city begins to burn, Scarlett and the others refugee toward Tara, there's very little food left to feed nine people, the Union comes through Tara, etc., etc. Mitchell does a great job of rendering a sense of urgency in the scenes.

My favorite scene in this section of the book was when the Union soldiers ransack Tara as Scarlett stands and watches. She is tired of the Union taking things that belong to her family and those she cares about, and she decides to make a stand. I laughed out loud when she shoved the Union soldier's wallet down the baby's diaper. I never would have thought of that! And, I was so glad she finally began to show a little bit of love toward Wade by rescuing Charles' sword from the soldiers.

So much has happened in this novel already, and I'm not nearly halfway through. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Gone With the Wind Read-along: Chapters 10-18

I'm going to have to reach back in my mind a little bit on this week's post. I ended up reading the chapters in three-chapter sections, and I read the first section on Monday. Whew. A long time ago!

The story really has started to get moving. It was a bit slow in the first nine chapters, mainly because we had to receive our introductions to all the characters and the setting. But, in this section, the story starts to take off.

I love how we get to see Rhett so much more often in this section. He's absolutely my favorite character thus far. He is a blockade buster and speculator, and makes no bones about the fact that he's in his job for nothing other than the money. He doesn't agree with the "noble" reasons everyone gives for the war, and speaks out against the Confederacy's chances to win at every chance he gets. I admire his ability to have his own opinions and principles and stick to them, regardless of what anyone else says.

Once again, I was not terribly fond of Scarlett. She continually ignores the fact that Ashley is married to her sister-in-law, yet she still thinks of him as being in love with her. She dreams incessantly about him returning from the war and the two of them running off together. I guess I could chalk this mindset up to the fact that Scarlett is still very young in both age and emotional maturity, but her constant talk of Ashley as "hers" just rubs me the wrong way.

Two of my favorite scenes in this section of the book take place surrounding significant military events.

The first great scene is when all the women in town are gathered at the newspaper office, waiting to hear of the casualties at Gettysburg. Despite the fact that there are dozens of women around, the scene is eerily quiet. Then, when the casualty lists come out, Mitchell does a great job of showing the devastation of women who lost loved ones and the relief of those whose loved ones were not on the list.

My second favorite scene comes as the state militia is riding/marching out to assist the army against Sherman's march toward Atlanta. It's a heartbreaking scene to read, as the group is just one long parade of young boys and old men who should not be going to war. Scarlett's horror at seeing some of the men, especially Mr. Wilkes, setting off to the battlefield is obvious.

So far, I am really enjoying this book (Still!). I can't wait to see what happens next.

Gone With the Wind Read-Along: Chapters 1-9

Last week, I found this post by Amy at My Friend Amy. She was proposing an informal read-along of Gone With the Wind and The Wind Done Gone. I've had a used copy of GWTW sitting on my shelf for awhile now, so I thought joining in as other bloggers read the book would be fun.

First, I must warn you that I have never read this book, nor have I seen the movie. I know, shocking, isn't it? It's just something that hasn't appealed to me until recently, even though I love the Civil War era. As a result of 25 years of complete lack of exposure to GWTW, outside of the occasional clip or famous line, I had no idea what to expect. I likely will draw some conclusions as I read this book that those of you who have read the book/seen the movie may laugh at because they're likely very naive in terms of what happens later, but I like to live under my rock, thank you very much.

Here's what I thought of the first nine chapters:

I think Mitchell does a great job of portraying life in antebellum Georgia. The settings are lush and green, the manners are genteel and the people are charming. I can already see why, simply on the strength of her writing alone, Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for this book.

I have to discuss Scarlett O'Hara, as she is the main character and all. At first, I really liked her. She was just sassy enough to endear her to me, and she had a little extra spark that wasn't considered "proper" in a Southern belle. Then, she became a shallow little teenager. I had to keep reminding myself that she is only 16 years old, which accounts for her selfish behavior and flighty ways, because she was so obsessive about finding a husband. She has no ability to be nice or charitable to any other female, other than her mother, because she's always in competition with them.

She continued to grate on my nerves when she decided to marry Charles even though she didn't care for him. But, again, I had to remind myself that she was only 16 and a lot of 16-year-olds do really stupid, selfish things. However, she didn't get any better in the selfish department after getting married, becoming a widow and having a baby. If anything, she got worse because she became so jealous of all the girls her age who didn't have to live under the same restrictions she did.

Even though we only see him briefly in the first nine chapters -- once at the Wilkes' barbecue and once at the hospital fundraiser -- I really, really like Rhett Butler already. He impresses me as a Mr. Darcy: A man who has a bad reputation and makes for a really good foil to the main character. I think there's definitely a lot more to him than meets the eye, but we shall see.

I also really like Melanie. She's quiet, kind and definitely more deserving of Ashley Wilkes (What we know of him now, at least) than Scarlett is.

I'm really excited to read the rest of this book over the course of the next several weeks. I'm glad Amy decided to host this read-along and break the book down into manageable sections because, if I were to tackle it straight off my shelves and on my own, I think I might just end up putting it aside for something else because it's just so long.