The only book that comes close to my ardent love of Pride and Prejudice is Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. I’ve devoured it over and over again since I was thirteen and have religiously watched the movie every single year since I was ten. I guess you can say I lost my Gone with the Wind virginity at a young age. For the most part I’m a purest, I won’t touch Scarlet because I felt Gone with the Wind ended perfectly–why muck with it? Although with prequels it is a different story, for some reason I like getting to know the characters before Rhett Butler didn’t give a damn.
I recently discovered that an authorized prequel to Gone with the Wind, will be released this fall, Ruth’s Journey, a novel about Mammy. She is by far one of my favorite characters in Mitchell’s novel and cannot imagine this southern saga without Mammy’s tenacity. She helped shape Scarlet and tried with all her might to reel her in, and is also the true, and constant voice of reason in the pages of Margaret Mitchell’s epic, I don’t think it would have been the same without her.
The one big thing that has me anticipating Ruth’s Story, is the backstory mentioned in Gone with the Wind of Mammy’s devotion to Ellen Robillard O’Hara and the tragady that befalls her before marrying Gerald O’Hara. Although, learning Ruth’s backstory will be just as interesting and shed light on the woman who is to become Mammy.
Interesting that there will be a prequel. I have never read this book. I have of course seen the movie and I love it soooo much!! I look forward to seeing what the prequel is all about.
Like Angela (above), I have never read Gone With the Wind, but I have seen the movie (and loved it). I would be awfully hesitant about a prequel (or a sequel); after all it is not Margaret Mitchell's writing – not her vision, not her imagination, not her ideas. I think sometimes we would like there to be something more, just to extend the pleasure of the actual book, but when the author is already dead, I think we have to accept that the story ends there.