MishMash Plus Gone With the Wind

Reading (or not reading?) continues apace at my house. I finally finished a juvenile lit. book today called Julia Gillian (and the Quest for Joy) by Alison McGhee. This is the second book in the Julia Gillian series, and it's cute, with a good message... but not particularly compelling. My daughter Julia enjoyed hearing it read aloud (by Austin) more than I enjoyed reading it to myself, I suspect. I do enjoy the fact that the setting is Minneapolis and that the grade school kids in the book go to "Lake Harriet Elementary" (is there such a school? I have no idea!).

Possibly the most compelling part of the story is the odd names that Julia Gillian's grade school compatriots have. Are there a lot of kids named Bonwit, Lathrop and Cerise running around in Minneapolis? I'm not judging here; it just seems awfully unlikely.

So there's another book down on the way to one hundred; then I can buy another book. I've knocked out all of fourteen so far. Sigh.

The next book on my read it pile is titled (wait for it) Hellion Bride. It's a romance novel by Catherine Coulter that I believe I picked up for free. Of course I can't just let it go and get rid of it; it must be read first! Even if the title is completely absurd. (And really, even Hellion Bride can't compete with the bodice ripper title I recently spotted at the public library; The Earl Claims his Wife. And yes, I restrained myself and at least didn't bring that one home...)

The other book news I have is that I'm slowly reading The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting out loud to Julia. It's fairly absurd, but she seems to be enjoying it. My personal favorite part has been hearing about Dr. Doolittle's efforts to learn to speak to clams.

In the world of books, this last week was the 75th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. I have really mixed feelings about the novel; it's hard not to be swept up in the Rhett/Scarlett romance (or the fact that Scarlett is so stubborn and clueless about just what her feelings are for pretty much the entire story)... while at the same time, the content of the book moves between mildly and blatantly racist. I've read through it twice, the second time a few years ago. I found myself totally pulled into the scene where Rhett proposes to Scarlett... and then horrified just seconds later by the use of the "n" word along with content that I've deliberately forgotten.

The novel and the movie are an oddity, I think. I have equal measures of love and hate for the story; how can such beautifully drawn characters - characters that I actually do love - be so awful? Yes, it was written a long time ago and in a place (the South) that sentimentalizes aspects of the Civil War. But it's still hard for me to reconcile the story I love with the fact that so many of the characters I love think it's just fine to own a person.

I own a copy of the film and I do watch it occasionally. Austin declines; he famously watched it with me once and somehow didn't realize it wasn't going to "end right." (Yes, I married a man who majored in English who didn't know what the end of Gone with the Wind was before we watched it together.) For myself, I love the costuming, acting, scenery... and many of the scenes. Yes, I feel uncomfortable with the scene where Rhett sweeps Scarlett off to the bedroom... but I prefer the implication that she's being swept off to the bedroom willingly to the notion that it's a marital rape happening off camera.

Any scene where Rhett is enjoying Scarlett's spirit and encouraging her to act in a way that will not be viewed as proper is fantastic. In particular I love how he gets his way and is able to dance with her despite her recent widowhood. I like it when he tells her that she needs kissing, and badly, and by someone who know how (swoon!). But my favorite is, of course, when he leaves her to finally become a soldier, despite knowing the South's cause is lost... but not before declaring that he loves Scarlett and swoops her into an embrace.

I know there is a whole book out there about Rhett called Rhett Butler's People. I am sure that, at some point, I will read it, if only to see if it offers any insight on one of my burning questions (namely is Belle Watling in love with Rhett, and is the child that she refers to having his child). But I hesitate a bit, because, even though I have mixed emotions about Gone with the Wind, it's a story that I grew up with and it does have so much in it that I love. Somehow it seems wrong to try to add to that.