Very astute insight. I agree. Many tortured souls in that book, not least the invulnerable seeming Rhett and the tragic but ever smiling Belle Watling.Fallible wrote: ↑Sun Jun 26, 2022 8:20 pmAfter reading the book and seeing the movie, I finally decided that among the three, everybody loved, liked, respected, hated, and/or feared everybody else and maybe even including themselves. It's part of what made the movie so memorable, I think.AnnetteLouisan wrote: ↑Sun Jun 26, 2022 6:51 pmI found that to be true with Gone with the Wind. I saw the movie several times, as most of us of a certain age and place have, and never dreamed the book, which I read much later in life, could outdo the film. It did. Such richness of detail, and gripping from start to finish even though the ending is known to us.nisiprius wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 5:54 pmIt is always, at least, interesting to read classics that have become bywords. (I'm working on Frankenstein; or, the New Prometheus.)
What often happens is that a book is a huge success, and becomes a byword; then they make a movie or movies or plays from it, and to a large extent the movie or play supersedes everyone's idea of what the story is; and then large numbers of pop-culture glancing references, jokes, moments in comedy routines or sitcoms, supersede even the movie.
And the original often gets mixed up with various books that are inspired by, or have borrowed ideas from, the original. Thus, our ideas of Robinson Crusoe probably get mixed up with The Swiss Family Robinson, and a book, no longer well-known--at least not in the US--The Coral Island, by R. M. Ballantyne. By now, the movie Castaway has probably gotten mixed in, too.
Drat that Ashley Wilkes!! He really did love Melanie more than he loved Scarlett, after all.
That moment when Scarlett finally gets it, Ashley really was unworthy of her love, he really loved plain old meek Melanie more than her all along, and Melanie knows all about it and even on her deathbed still sees the good in Scarlett, because Melanie, gracious to the last, truly is the better and even the stronger person, and asks Scarlett to take care of Ashley, it’s a killer.
(Oh yes I know, something about war and reconstruction of the South was going on in there too, I guess.)