Gone With The Wind
Author: Margarett
Mitchell
Copyright © 1936
by The Macmillan Company
Cover illustration ©1939
Turner Entertainment Co.
All rights reserved.
The translation
edition:
Lalu Bersama Angin
Translator: Susanty
Lesmana
Cover remake by David
Indonesian edition,
first published by PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, Jakarta, November 2002
My own: Second printed
in June 2009
1.124 pages; 23 cm
ISBN-10:
979-22-0032-0
ISBN-13:
978-979-22-0032-4
In order to celebrating Margaret Mitchell's birthday, I joined
Gone With The Wind Read Along with some other blogger. Hmm.. to tell you the truth, it was hard to do for me. Sexy book with those pages in a limited time. But it challenging though. Thank you,
Fanda and
Bzee for hosting this read along.
Ha! I finally made this review. This is really a
scary book! Not to mention it told horror story. Well, I don’t think I will read
horror story, anyway. This scary book means that the amount of the pages! It
has more than 1200 pages! And I have to read them within 2 months only! Wow!
And... the letters on every page are small. Thank you very much.
Umm.. okay, here’s a brief story about Gone With The Wind.
It told about Scarlett O’Hara, a girl from Tara, who was different from the
usual girl in her country. She’s stubborn and pretty wanna be. But she’s
attractive. She liked to gain men’s attention by her enchantment. She liked to
date one man to another man.
No one noticed that Scarlett O’Hara really in love with
Ashley Wilkinson because she’s dating any men. Scarlett herself realized that
she’s in love with Ashley when the Wilkinson’s family held a party to announce
the engagement of Ashley and Melanie Hamilton, his cousin. She didn’t want
Ashley to marry his cousin. Scarlett was trying to find a way to make Ashley in
love with her.
While thinking of a run away project with Ashley, Scarlett
was having some chat with Charles Hamilton. Brother of Melanie, the next
fiancee of Ashley. Charles was really in love with Scarlett and he kept on
holding Scarlett’s hand while Scarlett took a peek at Ashley. He thought that
Scarlett was in love with him too.
And when everyone was taking a nap between the party,
Scarlett was trying to find Ashley to tell him what she feels about him. She’s
trying to seduce Ashley. But Ashley kept still. When Scarlett found that Ashley
kept still on his taught to marry Melanie Hamilton, she was so angry and
throwed a vase (I guess, sorry I forgot) to Ashley. And when she shouted Ashley
till Ashley gone, she didn’t realize that there was a man who slept near them.
Rhett Butler.
Rhett Buttler is a friend of John Wilkinson, Ashley’s Pa.
He’s a business man. When all of the men in South talked about war on the
party, Rhett was trying to convince those men, that they were not ready to fight.
Rhett was giving an idea about not to make a war with the Yankees. Because he’s
already known that the Yankees were well prepared. And the South would be
beaten by the Yankees. But they would not listen to Rhett.
And before the Civil War goes, suddenly Scarlett O’ Hara
became Mrs. Charles Hamilton. Yes. She was married to Charles Hamilton in two
weeks, a day before the wedding of Ashley and Melanie. And Charles also died in
the war, just before he took a part at the war. He died because he got sick.
Not because he got killed by the enemies. And Scarlett also had a baby from
Charles, named Wade.
Then Scarlett moved in to Charles Hamilton’s hometown in
Atlanta. She lived there with Aunty Pittypat and Melanie (was Hamilton, now)
Wilkinson. She brought Wade there. While she’s staying at Atlanta, she worked
at hospital to help the warriors who got injured. Two years after, Ashley got
some breaks, so he went home to see his wife. And after the break, Ashley got
back to the war, Melanie got pregnant. Months later, Scarlett helped Melanie
delivered the baby.
Oh. I almost forgot. Rhett Butler also appeared in here. He
met Scarlett who wore mourning dress. Rhett who knew that Scarlett loved to
dress fashionable laugh at her and tried to change Scarlett’s mind about wearing the mourning dress. Rhett also asked
Scarlet to dance with him in a fundrising.
When Atlanta has fallen, Miss Pittypat was moved to Macon.
Scarlett was thinking about coming home to Tara. She brought Melanie, her baby,
and Wade too. For a half way to Tara from Atlanta, Rhett was with them. He rode
the horse cart. But then, he left them alone, because he decided to take a part
in the war.
Scarlet’s life has changed when she’s been back to Tara.
She’s no longer a spoiled girl. She has to deal with her family’s hunger
problem. And her mother’s death. And her Pa’s last condition. Her Pa was no
more a strong man after his wife’s
death. Scarlett has been transformed into a tough woman. All the things she
would do to keep Tara belongs to her family.
Okay, enough for the synopsis. I will not give you any
spoiler. You can read it as well. I would like to share you my opinion about this
book.
#1 Translation. Because
I’m reading this book the translation edition – in Bahasa, I will tell you
about the translation. Thanks to the translator, because she translated it well
and I enjoyed every word in it. I had no problem with her translation. This is
a classic book, so I must give her worship for re-telling the story into a good
words in Bahasa. I love it. Really. I had read the English version and I needed
more time to understand the story, since English is not my native language :D
#2 Characters. I
only remember some of those characters, mainly Scarlett O’Hara (of course),
Rhett Butler, Charles Hamilton, Mammy, Melanie Hamilton, Ashley Wilkinson, Miss
Pittypat, Uncle Peter, Elen O’Hara, Gerald O’Hara (ups, I almost wrote Gerald
Butler, LOL) and Frank Kennedy. There are so many characters in this book to
remember, and I only remember some of them! But I love the way the author wrote
it. She kept on reminding us the rest of other characters and the relationship
between them, so it didn’t make me to open previous pages to find out who they
are.
#3 Scarlett O’Hara. Honestly,
I don’t know how to feel about her. I don’t really like her at first, because
she’s so... what? I do not have words to describe her. She’s so stupid, spoiled, and over
confidence for me. When she was
fighting and working hard to keep her family stay out of the hunger and she
married Frank Kennedy, her sister’s, Suellen O’Hara fiancee to get some money
to pay Tara’s tax fee, I still couldn't fall in love with her. She could not impress me anyway. She's an opportunist! Well, she’s not the character that made me in love at the first sight. She
tried to convince me that she is worth to be loved. And I still don't in love with her.
#4 Rhett Butler.
I never like the style of this man. I know he’s smart, rich, handsome, but I
don’t like his non-commitment style. Well, I know, he’s the only guy who knew
how to make Scarlett noticing herself. But, still. I don’t like this man!
#5 The idea about the
women in that era. I don’t know that in the era before The Civil War, men
thought that women were stupid. Could not do anything but shopping for herself.
Could not do anything without her sleeve’s help. I also do not know in that
era, in United States, woman who made love with man before getting married were
labeled naughty. Not good woman. I think lots of girls now in United States and
other countries have lost their virginity before they got married. I think the
Civil War has changed the idea too.
#6 The story itself. For me, Margaret Mitchell is too wordy on writing this story. But that's okay because I don't need to open the previous pages to remind me all the story behind :D
#7 The cover. Well, I have no problem with the cover. I don't really like it, anyway :D
Nah, I made a little research about The Civil War that
underlie this story. You can check the source
here.
The Civil War was a fight to preserve the Union which was
the United States of America. From the conception of the Constitution, there
were two differing opinions on the role of the federal government. Federalist
believed that the federal government and the executive needed to maintain their
power in order to ensure the survival of the union. On the other hand,
anti-federalists held that each state should have the right to determine the
laws within its own borders and should not be forced to follow the mandates of
the federal government unless absolutely necessary.
 |
| The Civil War. Source from here |
As time passed the rights of the states would often collide
with various actions the federal government was taking. Arguments arose over
taxation, tariffs, internal improvements, the military, and of course slavery.
Northern Versus Southern Interests
Increasingly, the Northern states squared off against the
Southern states. One of the main reasons for this was that the economic
interests of north and south were opposed to each other. The South was largely
comprised of small and large plantations that grew crops such as cotton which
were labor intensive. The North, on the other hand, was more of a manufacturing
center, using raw materials to create finished goods. Slavery had been
abolished in the north but continued in the south due to the need for inexpensive
labor and the ingrained culture of the plantation era. As new states were added
to the United States, compromises had to be reached concerning whether they
would be admitted as slave or as free states. The fear of both groups was for
the other to gain an unequal amount of power. If more slave states existed, for
example, then they would garner more power in the nation.
Abraham Lincoln's
Election Leads to Secession
By 1860 the conflict between northern and southern interests had grown so
strong that when Abraham Lincoln was elected president South
Carolina became the first state to break off from the Union and form its own
country. Ten more states would follow with secession: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. On
February 9, 1861, the Confederate States of America was formed with Jefferson
Davis as its president.
 |
| Abraham Lincoln. Source from here |
The Civil War
Begins
Abraham
Lincoln was inaugurated as president in March, 1861. On April 12, Confederate
forces led by General P.T. Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter which was a
federally held fort in South Carolina. This began the American Civil War.
The Civil War
lasted from 1861 until 1865. During this time, over 600,000 soldiers
representing both sides were killed either by battle deaths or disease. Many,
many more were wounded with estimates of more than 1/10th of all soldiers being
wounded. Both the north and the south experienced major victories and defeats.
However, by September 1864 with the taking of Atlanta the North had gained the
upper hand and the war would officially end on April 9, 1865.
 |
| The Civil War. Source from here |
Well... war only left people in suffer. No food, no
home. Leaving the trauma inside. But also, war can make people change. Like, The
Civil War has transformed Scarlett O’Hara from a spoiled girl into a tough and
smart woman.
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949)
was an American author and journalist. One novel by Mitchell was
published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel, Gone with the Wind. For it she won the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936[1] and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. In more recent years, a collection of Mitchell's girlhood writings and a novella she wrote as a teenager, Lost Laysen, have been published. A collection of articles written by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal
was republished in book form. These additional works have enabled
scholars and the public to more fully comprehend the richness and depth
of Margaret Mitchell's writing.
 |
| Margaret Mitchell. Source from here |
I’m giving my 4 stars for Gone With The Wind. I'm learning a lot about The Civil War here. Happy
born day, Margaret Mitchell.
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