Gone With the Wind

One book that I had always been fascinated with was, is and most probably would be Gone With The Wind.

When I was in college, this book was a part of my popular fiction paper and for some godawful reason, all my classmates named the book G2W. (Don't ask me the logic behind this one. It's been three years and it still beats me!)

But that's not why I am writing this post.

I have read Gone With The Wind two times. One for pleasure reading, the next as the part of my course reading. And throughout my second year, I went around quoting passages or sentences from the book. (This irritated the hell out of my friends because it seemed that I didn't have a life out of this book and maybe they were right too)

My favourite passages were the repertoires between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler. I would want to take another detour and tell everyone that there wasn't one girl, who hadn't taken this course and didn't have a humungous crush on Rhett Butler (myself included) - his favourite characterisation of himself being that he was a scoundrel.

But maybe I am slipping or my memory isn't as sharp as I thought it is, because I can't remember anything else from the book except for Rhett's famous last lines, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." and Scarlett's ever-optimistic classic: "I won't think of it now. I'll go to Tara tomorrow. I'll think of it tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day."

But that's not the point again. The reason why I am writing this is because I am reading the not-so-famous sequel to famous 'G2W' - Scarlett.

Written by Alexandra Ripley, who was "chosen by the Margaret Mitchell estate to write this sequel," this book doesn't contain the fiery, almost-hateful Scarlett from the Gone With The Wind.

Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler doesn't resemble the original "green-eyed wench" created by Margaret Mitchell and immortalised by Vivien Leigh in the 1938 classic David Selznick adaptation. It is either that or I never knew much about the original Scarlett. (And I refuse to believe the latter. I have a 36-page presentation to prove otherwise too).

I am barely through the first 75 pages of Scarlett and I already feel let down.

But just because the innate curiosity (yeah the same one that killed the cat), I would bear through my disappointment and the 838 pages and come back with more criticism.

(Hey I sat through the 1024 page of 'G2W' - twice. And I had ample criticism for it then. 838 pages of this should be piece of cake right?)