Perverseness of a Woman. Anyone who has ever read this book, has shook their head and said, "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"
Yes, Scarlett O''Hara, the beautiful but hard-headed young Southern Belle, cuts a swath of destruction to rival Sherman''s March through Georgia.Besides the personal story of Scarlett O''Hara, this is also a fascinating story of the Civil War. It takes you there, and you feel like you are right there with the characters, reliving it. It also has philosophical bits that are enjoyable.Spoiled, conniving and cunning, this shallow girl sets her sites on Ashley Wilkes, an erudite Southern gentleman who lives in a world of ideas and thoughts. Though he admires her beauty and strong will; he only loves the kind and unselfish Melanie, who loves Scarlett and becomes her most loyal friend.Scarlett goes through the war mooning over Ashley and secretly pining for him. The only ones who know of her
lust for Ashley are her nanny, "Mammy" and Rhett Butler, her alter ego. Rhett recognizes Scarlett as a strong minded opportunist and encourages her to be true to her real nature and drop her pretenses of being a lady.Rhett falls for her hard, and though he is a hardened character himself, he is no match for her. After marrying her and spending years trying to win her love, she cuts his heart up like a steak and serves it to him raw.Once this girl gets a notion in her head, nothing will dislodge it, not the death of husbands, parents or friends. Still, one can admire her sheer ability to survive all the War can throw at her. Her shrewd "down and dirty" pragmatism in adapting to a world of rude and greedy opportunism reveals that she is really better suited to this crude new world than the gracious antebellum South.So, go ahead and fall under the spell of an amazingly crass teenager as she gains the courage to flaunt society and go after what she really thinks she wants. Once she gets it, she doesn''t want it and so we learn vicariously that sometimes what we think we want is very, very wrong.I read this book at the age of 12, around the clock. It is much better than the movie. I like this book because, though stupid, Scarlett does eventually learn, and so do we, from a safe distance, that unless we find happiness within ourselves, we will never find it elsewhere, and especially not in another person.