Gone With the Wind Fans discussion

Molly Haskell is the author of Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited, and this is her interview with NPR.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

It's pretty interesting. I have not read the book, but I am curious now.

I feel pretty strongly about this book. Against this book would be a better way to describe it. So I am going to take this chance to give it some bad publicity :D

Any credibility Haskell's insights might have had is drowned by factual errors, the kind that 1) would have been avoided if she bothered to re-read the book she was paid to write about (writing this book was not her idea, she was approached about it) and 2)would have been eliminated by a five minute googling if someone cared enough to at least do that. In Haskell's world, Ellen is from Charleston, Mitchell's mother dies of typhoid instead of influenza, the famous library scene takes place in a parlor, Jonesboro is north of Atlanta etc.

Not only that it's amateurish, but it shows more than a little disregard for the subject and for its readers. In short, not worth the purchase, IMO, but if anyone wants to take a look, it is available for free on gigapedia.com.

Whoa! I had no idea this book was so ill researched. I saw it advertised on TCM about a year ago after they showed GWTW and was curious. The interview was interesting, but I will be sure to avoid this book!

Thanks for the info.

I've read the book, and despite some of the glaring inaccuracies that my friend, Bugsie, has described, found it to be worth reading.

Haskell has a particular point of view; a Southern aristocrat by birth and upbringing (raised in the old Confederate capitol, Richmond, VA, alumna of Sweet Briar College, and descendant of Gen. Wade Hampton), she is now a feminist and upper East Side New York intellectual. This clash of cultures colors her view of GWTW, and what I got out of the book is that she is trying to establish her bona fides as an intellectual and feminist, despite her girlhood fixation on GWTW. The result is a blend of interesting analysis interspersed with some really condescending observations about GWTW and why some fans adore it.

The book is far from perfect, but I found some parts of it very good. She dares to look at the role of race and slavery in both book and the movie. This, to me, is very important. Slavery is the great gaping wound in our national consciousness, and a sin that the South has yet to live down. I especially enjoyed the chapter Finding the Road to Ladyhood Hard that shows how intertwined Mitchell and her heroine are in their experiences as young women. Haskell also describes the part F. Scott Fitzgerald played in shaping the screenplay, another interesting tidbit.

Anyway, I would say read it, but expect flaws. It is a short book, and an easy read.

Jillian wrote: "I read a biography once on M. Mitchell that was full of errors. It irritated me because so many took it as fact. (It came out several years ago.) I also read a recent sequel that was full of errors..."

What biography was it? I know that Road to Tara: The Life of Margaret Mitchell is full of errors, but other than and Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchelland Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh: The Love Story Behind Gone With the Wind, I don't really know about any other bios. I trust Southern Daughter; it's a dry read, but I'm more inclined to believe a professor than a pop biographer like Anne Edwards (Just saying...). I think we have a thread about Mitchell biographies....

Either way, I'm like you: I really, really hate inaccuracy. I haven't read Rhett Butler's People because I've heard so many bad things about it, including inaccuracy.

And I totally agree with you about this fad in publishing to write "alternative" versions and sequels of classics. I almost puked when I saw Android Karenina.

I guess it's not just you. :)

The first one ever written, Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta, by Finis Farr is very good. So is the book of her letters Richard Harwell edited in the 1970s. Gives you a real sense of who she is and what she was all about.