Gone with the wind.
I felt that I was deeply fascinated by it soon after I had read it.
I first read it in a summer. I did not finish it at a single sitting. However, the moment I finished it, near midnight in a sweltering August day, with my body poured with sweat, held my breath to turn the last page over, shut the book and heaved a sigh of relief, I just could not express how I felt. All were over: trouble was over; lives were over; hopes were over. I was shocked how such a small book could contain such a complicated story. Never were wars, diseases and starvation ever nakedly exposed to me like this. The turns in plots were surprising but natural.
It was a tragedy: Just as its name suggested, everything was gone with the wind, including families’ touch, friends’ support, sweethearts’ gaze and youth with vigour. The story reminds us of valuing all we were possessing. A life lasts for a short time and anything in it lasts shorter. We always lose something unconsciously and then feel regretful when we need them later.
Characters in the story were so vivid as if they had been going to jump out of the story, as if they had been existed in the real life at first.
“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for ‘this the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it’ this the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for——worth dying for.” Said Gerald, an Irish man who loved his soil more than his own life, let us know that life can be born out of land.
“But Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that even the most deathless love could wear out? Mine wore out, against Ashley Wilkes and your insane obstinacy that makes you hold on like a bulldog to anything you think about.”
“Scarlett, I was never one to patient pick up broken fragment glue them together and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken——and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.” Said Rett Butler, a man who love Scalett as much as a man can love a woman. Loving her for years before he finally got her, he loved her crazily but did not let her know it for fear of being hurt. But at last he still could not escape from hurts. “My dear, I don’t give a damn.” Look, he did not care about it at all. He was a man who disguised himself so much.
“I mustn’t bawl; I mustn’t beg. I mustn’t do anything risk his contempt. He must respect me even——even if he doesn’t love me.”
“I’ll think of it all tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I’ll think some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
Said Scalett O’hara, the most wonderful woman I’ve ever seen. She was hard and greedy and unscrupulous, a brave, frightened, bull-headed child. Though she only thought about how to attract man’s attention and did not do anything useful before the war, she did surprise me when I read about her doings after the war. At that time, her Tara was just reduced to ashes. Everyone sketched out their hands and asked her for food. She bravely faced the reality and rebuilt Tara with her own hands. What a tough woman, I thought. Though those she loved were all gone, she was still full of hope. When Rett didn’t love her anymore and wanted to leave her, she said “I mustn’t bawl… even if he doesn’t love me.” A woman’s dignity could be seen from what she have said and done. That’s why I appreciate her.
This novel gave me too much to think about and I can not fully express myself in English. It is true that reading an origin is more vivid than the translated ones. However, my English level limits me to understand the origin well without the translated. But I will work hard in order to understand better.
The novel is my treasure, forever, because I find myself in Scarlett and find the world I live in inside the story.
That’s really an excellent novel, with an ending from which you can see hope rising from despair.