Blown Away In The Breeze

A million people over the past 80 years have referred to Gone With The Wind in glowing terms, quoting Vivian Leigh or Clark Gable with all the zeal of somebody who just walked across the Red Carpet.

Almost nobody who knows anything about Margaret Mitchell's book has any idea what's in it. They remember a movie and a few classic bits. The whole thing is about the Civil War.

Yep, so far ... so good.

The book is a little bit more complicated than that, but then again -- so is the damned Civil War, which is usually boiled down to a couple of inane comments, depending on your point of view.

Mitchell's opus spreads across more than 1,000 pages and is some of the smoothest writing possible for its time frame (around 1933-34). It's wordy and over the top, and it is very badly flawed.

It's still great literature, the topic notwithstanding. Mitchell's story isn't one that would sell easily today. She glorifies the planter class in the South, claims the Yankees are all scoundrels and murderers and -- worse -- she colors over slavery as if to suggest that the 'darkies' are just 'negroes' who don't really have much to fear. In fact, they seem almost 'white' with a bit of a crudeness that manifests itself in a jibberish conversational tone.

The main characters are fairly well-defined. Scarlett, for all her personal angst, is much younger than she is portrayed by Ms. Leigh. But Mitchell's attempts to turn Scarlett into a conniving victim are successful. I almost want to cheer for the horse to spray mud on the bitch's dress.

Ah, there I go ... stereotyping.

The Civil War, as one of the most provocative events in global history, has more nuggets than a gold mine. But you need to know the facts about the years leading up to the conflict. GWTW doesn't actually present facts -- the story is set in Georgia, not Mississippi or Texas or Iowa or Vermont.

To get the whole picture, you need to do more than watch the movie.

A lot of life is not a movie.

Frankly, my dear ... you ought to give a damn about that.

(I snatched that photo off the internet and I didn't ask permission to use it. I will think about that tomorrow.)