Customer Reviews

The Wind Done Gone: A Novel

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(32)
2 star:		(30)
1 star:		(97)

 

 

GWTW certainly was one-sided in its portrayal of the Old South, and I can see how that could be a deal killer for a lot of readers. Although I consider GWTW to be one of the greatest pieces of American literature ever written, I was VERY excited by the idea of TWDG. The idea of building a "back story" around the black characters in Mitchell's novel is BRILLIANT! So much could be done with this idea to address issues of race and slavery, as well as to broadside a popular piece of American literature through counterpoint.

Unfortunately, this great idea is wasted because Randall is utterly lacking in talent. The thing that immediately bothered me about TWDG is the extraordinarily poor use of dialect. One sentence has the main character narrating in perfect grammar with strong vocabulary and then in the next sentence she's all "he do dat" and "me go sleep." Randall should have picked one voice for her main character and stuck with it. This alone represents terrible hack writing, but I must go on and say something about the (snicker) "plot."

The plot, which should be subversive and controversial, fails to rise above the trashy romance novel level, and the (I think they're supposed to be shocking) sex scenes wouldn't shock anyone except my Amish Aunt Minnie. I actually laughed out loud several times as I read them because I pictured Clark Gable/Rhett Butler saying some of this ridiculous dialogue.

The plot here is so flaccid that Randall inadvertently undermines her own book. The white characters remain more interesting than any of the black characters. This despite the fact Randall gives them tons of dirty linen to air in an obvious (and pathetic) attempt to make them interesting. Her black characters are non-entities, which I believe was her beef with Mitchell in the first place....right?!

As a result, by writing TWDG, Randall is only spray painting a nasty word on the castle walls of GWTW when what she needed to do was bulldoze the original, dance gleefully on its grave, and create something very powerful in its place. But that would take a skilled writer, and Randall just doesn't have the goods.

"Taking on" GWTW is a great idea, especially to stir up discussion around issues of racism and slavery in our country and our history. However, to do an idea like that justice requires a talented author (i.e., not Alice Randall). Maybe Toni Morrison should take this on? I'd read that!

Who in the publisher's house doesn't know the meaning of "parody"? This book is not a parody of "Gone with the Wind" but a moving companion piece to the GWTW world of Margaret Mitchell.

For almost seventy years, we have had Mitchell's view on the old South, the heroine Scarlett O'Hara and "Wind Done Gone" is an amazing work of fiction on the African-American point of view, its heroine, Cynara, Scarlett's half-sister.

The story is told in first person, stream of consciousness, which may be difficult for some to follow, as the author weaves back through Cynara's memories and revelations. Stream of consciousness isn't as straight-forward as a point by point, outlined presentation, but more realistic presents the human experience. I feel the author's style, presenting this as Cynara's diary is a wonderful way to tell this story.

There are some surprises along the way as Alice Randall gives detail to some of Mitchell's characters that were lesser characters to Scarlett and Rhett in GWTW. Not only the twists that change Mammy and Prissy from old derogitory stereotypes, but the detail she spins into the characters of Gerald and Ellen O'Hara, Scarlett's parents. Ellen, here called "Lady", is more interesting here than in the original, I think!

For those who are so affronted that a new frame of reference is given to a historical period, and a **work of fiction**-- well, no book is for "every one". However, look at any other real event in American history - in any country's history - in any one's life- and there is always more than one point of view!!! The original accounts of "Custer's Last Stand" from the Caucasian point of view were vastly different than the Native Americans' account of the battle. The American account of the final days of the defense of the Alamo are sharply contradicted by the Mexican accounts!

If anything, Alice Randall's book adds a richness to Mitchell's classic. And it means I can read GWTW and watch the movie without cringing when it comes to the depiction of the slaves.

I read the reviews on Amazon before I bought this book and have to say I enjoyed this book much more than I expected. Don't get so wrapped up in the mythos of GWTW that you forget that **it is a work of fiction, as is The Wind Done Gone** or that you forget that in art, as well as life, there is always more than one point of view, and the world is not just as it is seen by yourself and your culture!

The author and accompanying media seem to imply that if you dislike this book, you are clinging to a pro-slavery fictional South portrayed in "Gone with the Wind," that you are being stodgy and unwilling to face facts.

Can I dislike this book just because it was really bad?

Sadly, this volume was not worth the highly-publicized legal battle that was waged over it. Though described as an unauthorized parody from the African-American POV of the time, this book is an utter failure. (Did I mention the title is also pretty bad?)

The book centers on the mulatto half-sister of GWTW lead Scarlett O'Hara, Cynara. Cynara is the daughter of Captain O'Hara ("Planter") and Mammy, Scarlett's strong-minded, down-to-earth nursemaid. "The Wind Done Gone" chronicles Cynara's life in Tara and in the post-Civil War Reconstruction, where she is raised alongside her glamorous half-sister but denied the same love, attention and privileges. Then "Planter" sells her, and she ends up in a brothel. Ironically, one frequenter of the brothel is Rhett Butler, the dashing handsome husband of Scarlett (who is constantly--and irritatingly--referred to as "Other"). She becomes his long-term lover, and naturally we are supposed to sympathize with Cynara and not with "Other..."

Where to begin?

Despite the red sticker on the cover, this is not a parody: a parody indicates humor or satire, of which this book has neither. It's too relentlessly self-conscious of Its Mission to be truly amusing, and too heavy-handed to be a successful satire. (Here's hoping that someone with the witty style of Dave Barry tries a satire of GWTW) The writing style is, like many pieces of literary fiction, rambling and present-tense, sometimes lapsing into stream of consciousness.

As a main character, Cynara fails. While "Other" is decidedly unlikeable in the original work, she has the rare quality of fascination that draws the reader in and makes them read about a character whether they like him/her or not. Sadly, Ms. Randall does not have the capability to do this with her characters; I felt that Cynara's only function in the story was to compare her to "Other." When Cynara got involved with dashing, handsome, virile Rhett Butler ("R") I began to wonder if Cynara was Randall's alter ego. She's annoying contemporary, as well as being delightfully PC; also, I saw little maturing and learning in her thoughts, as well as little of the touted intelligence that she is supposed to have.

Cynara, in fact, spends so much time comparing herself to "Other" that I found the description of "independent-minded woman" irrelevent. She frets constantly about Other's prettiness, her glamor, her relationship with "R"--and it rapidly becomes childish and tiresome.

And though this was touted as a viewpoint from the slaves, I was appalled to see how they were portrayed. This book gave Randall an opportunity to portray the slaves as being oppressed and maltreated, yet retaining inner dignity and will. Rather, she had them violent and aggressive toward others, including the infant sons of "Planter" (chop it down to simple terms "they were killing innocent babies" and it doesn't sound so fair, does it?). I was shocked. REALLY SHOCKED. Like "St. Louis" I was rather disgusted that the worst part of slavery was gleefully twisted around, thus negating its very horror.

I can only imagine why Ms. Randall was so determined that TWDG be a parody of GWTW -- either a deep-seated psychological fixation, or a determination to boost her first book sales. But I do know that had she not been so relentless in her pursuit of making this so-called parody, she could have produced an excellent novel. If you could strip away the preoccupation with GWTW, Scarlett O'Hara, and the PC-ness of it all she could have written a decent novel. (Minus the infanticide mentioned in the previous paragraph, of course)

Quite honestly, I'd have welcomed a witty parody of GWTW that could pointedly show the plight of the slaves and lampoon the "gallant South" (it is admittedly fun to read about). Sadly we'll have to wait for someone else to do so.

When I first heard about the impending publication of "The Wind Done Gone," I was excited. At last, a book was on the horizon that would somewhat debunk the images of the Old South. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

Well, I have finished Randall's book and, sad to say, this is not the book that "repaired" Mitchell's fantasy. Slow in pacing, confusingly organized, and hurt by the first person narrative style, the novel, like others have stated, is not a true parody. It is, however, one to be read and discussed for it does present another perspective, albeit, like the original, the "view" is slightly flawed.

A better "parody" is the classic skit from the "Carol Burnett Show" entitled "Went with the Wind." Vicki Lawrence's turn as "Cissy," the slave who "knows nothing about birthin' no babies" had more bite than Randall's novel.

I was hoping for more from this one.

I wanted to like this book, I really did (hey, its main character is named Cindy!). I was rooting for Randall to be able to publish it as a parody despite the lawsuits brought by the Mitchell estate, and it truly does lend an interesting perspective on what life might have been like for slaves in the deep south. (I especially enjoyed Cindy's comment that slave owners did not need to pay for sex in a brothel because they could "steal poontang" anytime they wanted.)

The first third or so of the book is quite good. But I found some of the events that occur later in the book too unbelievable, and I thought there were a few too many gratuitously sexual passages. I think the book is still worth reading, but the rave literary reviews I had read caused my expectations to be set higher than what the book delivered to me.

I didn't enjoy this as much as I expected to. The original "Gone with the Wind" has outrageous depictions of the slaves and this book, with its sparkling concept, could have been great. Unfortunately, though, there isn't much of a plot and the writing isn't very compelling. It's in diary form and represents the musings of Cynara, an ex-slave and the illegitimate daughter of "Mammy" and "Planter," the plantation owner of "Tata" [Tara], and the half-sister of "Other" [Scarlett]. In her entries, Cynara muses about the men who love her, her beloved Mammy and her rivalry with "Other", with some historical details thrown into the mix. ["We went to see a play at Ford's Theater. A woman's dress caught fire. Some of these new dyes are so dangerous."]

Her fixation on whether her Mammy loved her or "Other" better fills many entries, along with somewhat tiresome discourses about "R" [Rhett], whom Cynara seems to be primarily interested in because of her rivalry with "Other." ["When had R grown old? When did he stop being Other's husband? How will I know? How will I let myself know? When did I start loving R? Had it stopped? Could it stop? Had I ever really loved him, or had I just wanted what was hers? Was he mine before he was hers?"]

Cynara spends a lot of the diary fussing about "Other" [Scarlett]. ("["Other"] wasn't pretty... " "["Other"] knew I was the prettier one... " "["Other"] was not beautiful, but men seldom recognized this... ")

In this revisionist history, the slaves conspire to kill "Planter's" sons to maintain control over "Tata." "Miss Prissy" [Prissy] who in this version has a "keen and labyrinthine intelligence" surreptitiously kills off "Mealy Mouth." [Melanie Wilkes] Anyone would agree that the depiction of the slaves in the original "Gone With the Wind" was outrageous, but does it help matters to have a new version where the slaves conspire to kill [the "Planter's" and "Lady's"] white babies, who had not (yet) done any wrong to anyone? Does that "even up" history? The author also has "R" saying that "... all Irish are shiftless, lazy crackers, no matter how rich they get."

Further, this "diary", written as if the entries had been made in the 1870's, has a disconcerting "written in the twentieth-century" feel to it. One example of many of this is Cynara mentioning a self-taught black congressman and then noting "He merits a line in anybody's history of these United States." This is clearly a [valid] sentiment that one could have in evaluating today's history textbooks, but doesn't seem like anything someone would write in the 1870's.

I guess I was hoping this book would be something more like Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" where one came away with a compelling and deeply-researched look into another world.

All in all, not a great effort.

I am about 1/3 way through this book, and it is very intriguing. It is reminiscent of Gone With the Wind, which I know mostly from the movie. I read the book by Margaret Mitchell many years ago, however, I don't see this book as a parody at all, nor a sequel. It's a different perspective on the view of the South offered in Gone with The Wind. I think Ms. Randall is respectful of the characters Mitchell created, and it is sort of like following someone peeping into GWTW and is thinking "hmmm, wait I know there's a shadow behind that door, and a few skeletons to boot." I am enjoying the book, it's fascinating. It's in first person, the story of a mulatto woman, her feelings and her inner life, so certainly this is not found in GWTW at all, and I'm glad to be able to read this. It's good, I recommend it.

While Alice Randall's book is a difficult read at time and very desnsely written, I feel like many of the negative reviews here miss the what the author was trying to accomplish. Many reviews object to the way in which Randall changes Margaret Mitchell's character saying that it taints the legacy of Gone With the Wind, but that is the whole point behind this incredibly intelligently written book...to show the skewed perspective from which GWTW was written. Randall set out to reveal a more complete picture of what the antebellum South was like, debunking the romantic myth that Mitchell portrays for a more complete vision of the contradictions and unequalities that existed in Southern society. She is giving a voice to a unrepresented group of people in American history, a reality brushed under the carpet by Mitchell's limited view of Southern society.

This book is not easy to read, but it is worth your time to understand a worthwhile and untraditional, but still very relevant, view of the relationship between white and black in the antebellum South. Randall is not retelling Mitchell's story, but presents her own original narrative using some of Mitchell's characters.

I happen to be one of those rare individuals who enjoyed both Gone With the Wind and The Wind Done Gone. However, they differ wildly not only in perspective but in style, scope, quality and consistency. Gone With the Wind is an ambitious work that required a great deal of research and thought. It handled numerous characters and their lives with Dickensian skill. And it was of epic length. The Wind Done Gone is a very brief contemplation on the flip side of the world depicted in Mitchell's novel. I expected Randall's work to be longer and far more detailed considering how strongly she suposedly feels about the subject matter. It doesn't really compare in scope. It is more like an essay in terms of impact. I wish that Randall had been more ambitious in her project. I would have better enjoyed reading an answer to Gone With the Wind that had been given the same amount of time and effort that the original was obviously given. It is indicative of the flaw of many recent novels, the writer lacks the stamina to deliver an authentic classic. If you are at all interested, it is worth a look. However, it does not live up to the hype. But, after all, it is her first novel.

I feel quite sure that I have read "Gone With The Wind" more than 100 times -- it is a book that has had a powerful hold on me despite its many flaws. Its racism has been by far the hardest to deal with and is the main reason that I have not reread the book as often in recent years. Now that I have read "The Wind Done Gone," though, I feel like I finally have the other half of the story. Randall's imaginings of what was going on 'behind the scenes' at Tara are historically accurate and generally extremely insightful takes on the GWTW characters. I did not agree with every revision of character or event, but most of them rang true. I was impressed by her depth of understanding of the original book, and the evident love she has for characters both black and white. Though I have read the spiritless sequels officially sanctioned by Mitchell's estate, this is the only follow-up I've ever read that I felt had the hot blood of the original in its veins. If Mitchell's heirs had a lick of sense, they wouldn't have sued; they'd have declared this the true sequel.