Ok, first - the Little Prince. My friend lent me a beautifully illustrated version of this, and I read it in about half an hour. It is a children's book, and is a lovely fanciful account of the Little Prince's travels from planet to planet, learning about what is important. It has some sweet imagery in it - his home planet is tiny, so he regularly rakes out his active volcanoes in order to avoid an explosion (the problem with our planet, you see, is that our volcanoes are too large to rake and so they tend to erupt). By taming a fox, the Little Prince learns that a friend (the fox, his flower) doesn't have to be the only one in the world, but when you love something, it becomes the only one in the world to you. Cute, and well-realised - the translation I read, from the original French, was also nicely written.
Secondly - Gone with the wind, or GWTW from now on. I can't believe I have never read this before - it's very much the kind of book I enjoy, and I absolutely loved it. It took me a while to get into it - for the first 100 pages, I found that the casual references to darkies, field negroes etc, and the associated attitudes ("they're like children, they need to be told what's good for them") really grating and offensive. I decided that I needed to put these to one side and accept it as being a reflection of the period, in order to give myself a chance of appreciating the work whilst not actually agreeing with the attitudes therein. Once I'd made that decision, I found it much easier to read!
So, what to say about GWTW? Scarlett O'Hara is a fantastic heroine - I think I liked her in the same way as I appreciated Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, in that Scarlett is consistently portrayed in her true light - she is not "good", she doesn't do what is expected of her, and she is full of life. Rhett Butler is also a brilliant male romantic lead - dashing, bad, thrilling, but with a heart. The story itself is gripping, with unexpected ups and downs, and it is absolutely brutal - Margaret Mitchell doesn't shy away from tragedy(perhaps an understatement!). I wanted it to end differently, but having said that the resolution of the story is great, and unexpected to the end...
I'm not sure I can write much more about it that hasn't already been written and said. I feel like I've learnt something about the American Civil War - I've studied it in the past, but very much from the point of view of the north, and the Confederate experience was obviously very different. Not sure how accurate it is, but it felt enlightening at the time. I think it is sufficient to say that GWTW fully deserves its reputation for being one of the great romantic novels of all time - if you haven't read it, please do, although you may need to set aside a few weeks to do so! I may even go on to watch the film...
No comments:
Post a Comment