Margaret Mitchell, 1936 Date Read: 7/3/22
I had seen the movie before, but, Jesus Christ, this book.
I don't have to tell you how racist it is. Everyone knows. But I did copy out a few lines that struck me:
How stupid negroes were. They never thought of anything unless they were told. And the Yankees wanted to free them!
Mammy had a face "sad with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey's face".
Scarlett threatens to sell Prissy, a black child around age 11, away from her parents because Prissy was disobedient. The author equates children, negroes, and dogs (and in fact, this is said multiple times). The author claims the KKK was formed to "protect white women from being outraged by free issue n-----s" who apparently think of nothing but raping white women. I could go on, and on, and on (this is a really long novel) but you get it. This is an incredibly racist book full of every single racist trope.
Besides all of that, which was incredibly difficult to read at times (I almost didn't finish this one), Scarlett O'Hara is a horrible, terrible, awful person. She is a narcissist. She uses people and discards them when she's done. She feels pricks of conscious twice, and one of them is because she's afraid she will go to hell, not because she actually regrets her choices. This entire novel is a timeline of her abusing and discarding men, women, and even her own children.
We are supposed to admire her for the work she did saving Tara and building wealth and yes, for that, she did some admirable things. She did save Melanie and other people - but she didn't want to, and she clearly regretted it multiple times. She even threatened to kick her own sister out, before stealing her sister's fiancé with a lie.
One single sentence in this whole novel I can agree with:
I've found out that money is the most important thing in the world and, as God as my witness, I don't intend to be without it again.
Throughout my entire first marriage, we continuously struggled to pay the bills and often even to buy groceries. This was for a combination of reasons such as: we were two kids who didn't know how to handle money, I had a lot of medical debt for a surgery that insurance didn't cover, and my ex has a spending problem. As we got older the first two issues faded away but money never got any easier because over time my ex got better and better at hiding his spending from me. I struggled to feed my children. I will never live that again. Now with my second husband, our bills are paid. We cut back on spending to make ends meet. I will never be in a position where I can't afford to feed my kids ever again.
Anyway, back to the novel. Mitchell was a good writer and I'm amazed this was her first novel. It is incredible that someone wrote this without practice or experience. She knew people and how people thought and behaved. If you can look past the racism and Yankee caricatures, it is a fascinating look at life during the Civil War. I read it like a historical novel where, you know they believed weird shit, but you just go along because that was their world. Mitchell's view of life and the war is not entirely accurate, but it is fiction so.
Length: 956 pages in paperback
ReReadability: it is extremely long and REALLY FUCKING RACIST so probably no
Classic: Against my will, I have to say yes. Despite the horrible, repugnant beliefs of the Southern characters in the novel, it is still well written and a fascinating story. But fuck racism, seriously!
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