A recent newspaper article reported a new trend in book publishing. Consumers, it seems, favor books that can be read in a few hours – 200 pages being a good target length. This is no surprise. We have moved well beyond the television age when all problems of the protagonists were solved in a half-hour sitcom (actually 22 minutes sans commercials) into the even faster-paced era of blogs, instant messaging, and text talk. O, lol, if u will, but u no it’s so!
In such a world, only a few will find time to leisurely enjoy one of the many great classic books. Those tomes will become "no more than a dream remembered…gone with the wind." For the rapid-reading pleasure of you band of BlackBerries out there, here is a two-minute drill through Margaret Mitchell’s 1,037-page epoch of the old South, Gone With The Wind.
The story opens at the family plantation, Tara. The heroine, Scarlett O’Hara, is simultaneously flirting with two young men. Fiddle-dee-dee, can that girl flirt! Mitchell describes Scarlett as a Belle, although we had a different name for girls like her in my day. Soon Scarlett is Belleing her bonnet off at a barbeque at the Wilkes plantation, Twelve Oaks (Mitchell does not reveal whether the barbeque is vinegar, mustard or tomato-based, possibly fearing that doing so might make the book too long). While playing Belle to a bevy of beaus, Scarlett secretly harbors a hankerin’ for the Wilkes lad, Ashley. But, great balls of fire, Ashley is asking for the hand of his cousin, Melanie (the book is silent about the legality, let alone the wisdom, of such a union).
While the girls take an afternoon nap (apparently, a Belle custom), Scarlett sneaks away and eavesdrops on the gentlemen conversing about the possibility of a war with the "Yankees." Most of the guys are certain the coming confrontation will be short and sweet for the South. One remarks, "One of us is worth 10 Yankees. Heck, even the Cleveland Indians beat ‘em last year." Only the handsome, debonair, smooth-talking Rhett Butler demurs. Being from Charleston, which explains the handsome, debonair, and smooth-talking part, Rhett has an inkling this notion of swiftly defeating a much larger, better-financed northern force may be a few hush puppies short of a seafood platter.
Scarlett reveals to Ashley her love for him in the library (fans of the board game, Clue, take note), but is rebuffed. The war begins and boys enlist to go off and fight. Charles Hamilton asks Scarlett to marry him and she agrees believing this will make Ashley jealous. In a double wedding ceremony (presumably to save money and pages in the book), Scarlett marries Charles and Ashley marries Melanie. Unfortunately for Scarlett (but luckily for the ensuing story), Charles soon succumbs to pneumonia (poignantly demonstrating the prudence of flu shots). Scarlett moves to Atlanta to wait out the war with Melanie and her Aunt Pittypat. Rhett, also in Atlanta, hangs out at a brothel with a proprietress named, naturally, Belle. At a charity ball for the war effort, Butler bids $150 for a dance with Scarlett, reinforcing what a Belle she really is. The debonair and handsome Rhett tells Scarlett she should be "kissed and often, by someone who knows how." Fiddle-dee-dee, what a smooth-talker!
Sherman is laying waste to Atlanta, proving what can happen when too many people from Ohio are allowed into a southern town. As Atlanta burns, Melanie goes into labor. Scarlett and Prissy deliver the baby – a boy, whom Melanie names Beau. Rhett arrives with a horse and carriage to help them escape to Tara where Scarlett discovers the old homestead has lost its grandeur and her old man has lost his marbles. All this drives Scarlett to vegetarianism, as she plucks tubers from the soil declaring, "I will never be hungry again!"
[The movie has an intermission at this point. If you need to toity or want to grab a cold one, this would be the time.]
As we return to the old South, we find Scarlett laboring, picking cotton, in the fields of Tara to support her daddy. As is fully revealed later, it is really Scarlett for whom the Belle toils. The war has ended, another championship for the Yankees. Ashley returns from the war and Scarlett resumes her quest for his affection. Yankee carpetbaggers and southern scalawags (remember to keep these straight for the final exam) have raised the taxes on Tara to $300. Scarlett decides to return to Atlanta and ask Rhett for $300, believing the surest way to man’s wallet is to gussie up in a gown made from draperies. Butler doesn’t fall for the old curtain caper (he is way too debonair) and smooth-talks her with the "money is hidden in Europe" line. So, ever the Belle, Scarlett marries Frank Kennedy for $300.
Scarlett and Ashley start a lumber business. On her way to the mill one day, she is accosted by hobos (inasmuch as Mitchell died tragically in 1949, we will never know if this may be a typographical error and the author intended for Scarlett to be attacked by lobos) and is saved by Big Sam. Frank and Ashley pursue the miscreants into the woods only to have Frank killed by gunshot and Ashley wounded. Noticing that Scarlett is now, conveniently, unattached once more, Rhett proposes marriage. Despite her zero-for-two track record in the husband department and the torch she still carries for Ashley, Scarlett says yes. They travel on a grand honeymoon to New Orleans (Charleston would have been way nicer), build a mansion in Atlanta (Charleston would have been way nicer), and have a baby girl – Bonnie Blue Butler.
The Butlers become just another jolly post-war family. Rhett gets drunk. They separate. He takes Bonnie to London (Charleston would have been way nicer). The child hates London so he returns her to Scarlett, who announces she is pregnant. Both Rhett and Scarlett agree they don’t want another baby. After he opines that she might ‘have an accident,’ she then does, falling down the stairs, and loses the baby. This light-hearted segment is capped off when little Bonnie dies in a horse riding accident (her granddaddy O’Hara died in an eerily similar manner, although the heredity angle is left unexplored).
Melanie becomes ill. As Melanie dies, Scarlett suddenly realizes that she didn’t love Ashley after all, but indeed loves Rhett. Mind you, we are now 1,000 pages deep into the book, when Mitchell has Scarlett do a one-eighty on a major plot (possibly the impetus for the line, "I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy."). Scarlett rushes home to tell Rhett the good (she thinks) news. He, however, is too savvy (as well as debonair and handsome) and tells her he is going away to – you guessed it – Charleston. "Where shall I go…what shall I do?" she pleads to which he delivers his best smooth-talking retort, "Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn."
Down but never out, Scarlett vows to return to Tara to orchestrate a Belleish plan to woo back Butler, setting the stage for book’s undeniable and timeless killer closing line (one can only imagine Mitchell struggling to hold this back for 1,036 pages), "After all, tomorrow is another day."
