Book 1: A Banned Book -

Scarlett O'Hara. She is the same age as me when the book comes to an end,  yet she has gone through so many tribulations than most people my/her age. Losing two husbands to death, losing both parents, surviving the Atlanta siege,surviving General Sherman's troops at Tara, miscarrying , losing a child to death, then at the end, being left by her third husband, the only man she realized, sadly when it was too late, that she loved.

This book, Gone with the Wind, all 884 pages of it, after A Prayer for Owen Meany and Anna Karenina, has been the most difficult book I have gone through. Too cutting, too poignant. I mourned the death of Bonnie. I grieved the demise of Rhett and Scarlett's marriage.

Margaret Mitchell's book is on number 26 on the American Library Association's List of the 100 most-banned classics. Some say it was censored because of the use of the 'N' word and the portrayal of blacks in the 19th century.

I find the violent role and nature of the Ku Klux Klan was romanticized in this classic, with Mitchell using characters like the noble and gentle Ashley Wilkes and somehow 'spineless' Frank Kennedy as the members of the Klan who only wanted to fight for their women's honour against blacks and the Republicans.

There are tones of issues in this book that 'rattled' me including...

1. Marital rape. When Rhett Butler was enraged and had his way with Scarlett whether she wanted or not.
2. Slavery - how almost all the Southern rich families owned 'darkies' at their plantations and were against the freedom of the 'negroes'.

I'm still digesting the whole book. Sad that I came to the end. Wondering what became of Scarlett back at Tara. Wondering what became of Rhett Butler. Wondering what became of Ashley now that he had lost a wife.

The most cutting and apparently famous quote in the book is the one uttered by Rhett towards the end of the book "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." in response to Scarlett's tearful question : "Where shall I go?What shall I do?"