marguerite duras on writing

Writing is a stream of consciousness collection of essays by French author and film director Marguerite Duras, best known for her novel The Lover and her screenplay for the film Hiroshima Mon Amour.

One of her last books, Writing reads as a running meditation on the act of writing. She touches on the many subjects, especially death, that have compelled her to write. As much as she directs some of her prose to the reader, the essays quite often seem like Duras's dialogue, discussion, even argument, with herself and why she writes.

The five essays in the volume are almost poetic in structure; isolated thoughts about a topic set on the page.

In "Writing," the title essay, Duras tries to set down the myriad things that influence her work — her house, her love life, even an afternoon spent watching the death of a fly.

"I swear it. I swear all of it. I have never lied in a book. Or even in my life. Except to men. Never." 

"Insults are just as strong as writing. It's a form of writing, but addressed to someone."

Duras tells a story in the second piece, "The Death of the Young British Pilot" about a British airman, age twenty, who died on the last day of World War II, and how his death affected the village in Northern France where his plane went down. His death is still as affecting today as it first was in 1944, to Duras, the village, and the reader. She dedicated Writing to him.

"And then one day, there will be nothing left to write, nothing to read, nothing left but the untranslatable fact of the life of that dead boy who was so young, young enough to make you scream."

"Roma," a cinematic story, finds a couple in Rome, watching night fall near the Piazza Navona and having a conversation about film, love, and the relationship between a Roman general and his captive, the Queen of Samaria.

"You seem to fear the visible side of things."
"I'm afraid as if I were suffering from Rome itself."
"From perfection?"
"No ... from its crimes."

In "The Pure Number" Duras muses on the word "pure," discussing everything from how olive oil is graded to how "purity" was used in Nazi Germany. It's short, chilling, and very effective. It starts off innocently enough:

"For a long time the word pure was co-opted by the cooking oils trade. For a long time olive oil was guaranteed pure, but never other oils, like peanut or walnut."

In the final essay, "The Painting Exhibition," Duras talks about an old painter, involved in his solitary act of creativity. She has viewed the act of writing as solitary and lonely throughout Writing, so this essay serves as the perfect coda.

"There are many of them. They're all turned toward the wall. All the paint missing from the tubes went onto those canvases. That is where it now is, on the canvases whose progress it halted."

Writing is a lovely little volume that would serve as a nice addition to a reader's other books by Duras, or as a great introduction to a very original thinker and artist.

Related articles

• Book Review: Writing by Marguerite Duras, translated by Mark Polizzotti (blogcritics.org)

the lover

Article first published as Book Review: The Lover by Laura Wilson on Blogcritics.

The Lover is a wonderfully written psychological thriller set in London in 1940 during the Blitz. We may have seen movies and read historical accounts of this World War II time frame before, but never in such day-to-day detail. Every night people would have to go to a bomb shelter, subway, or shelter at home in closets, under kitchen tables, for hours. The "all-clear" might not be sounded until the early hours of the morning, so that most people went weeks without any decent sleep, in constant fear for their lives.

Air raids could be heard all through the night, the planes coming ever closer, with people hoping and praying that theirs wouldn't be the home that was hit that evening. The next morning on their way to work they might see their neighbor's houses or the local tobacconist's shop reduced to rubble. They would still have to go through the day-to-day motions of life — going to work, buying food (but only whatever their ration cards would allow), but mostly just living from one moment to the next.

Historical crime author Laura Wilson captures the air of uncertainty of this time period perfectly. Inspired by the true-life "Blackout Ripper," a serial killer of prostitutes in the tradition of Jack the Ripper, The Lover evokes the twin threats of the nightly bombing raids and a crazed killer on the loose in London.

Real-life murderer Gordon Cummins was a 28-year-old airman. To all who knew him he must have appeared normal enough — a dashing, handsome, accomplished pilot. But in 1942 he also killed four women, most of them prostitutes, first strangling them and then mutilating their bodies, during the blackouts in a six-day spree that terrified the West End of London as much as the seemingly endless German air assaults.

The Lover is told from the viewpoint of three characters — Rene, a prostitute and potential victim, Lucy, a young woman who is naive about men and looking for romance, and Jim, an RAF pilot with a kink — he likes to kill women. Hill makes each character's voice strong, and the reader will connect with the women, especially Rene.

The unapologetic Rene has ended up on the street after being misled by a married man and left with a child to support. She is practical and loving and we see London and many of the other characters through her clear eyes. Lucy, on the other hand, is so addled by her notions of romance that at times the reader may want to strangle her, before the Ripper gets a chance. But she is just young and innocent of the ways of the world and of men, living in a very unsure world. When the going gets tough, she does show her true colors to be that of a strong, capable, and caring woman.

Every character in The Lover is well-written, from the local people that Rene and Lucy come across in a shelter, to Jim's victims, to an air raid warden who has a special friendship with Rene. The story is a true page-turner and kept me involved and riveted, almost until the very end, when it went off the rails.

As much as I enjoyed reading The Lover, at least before the last few pages, I have to admit that I ultimately felt let down by the author. Without totally giving away the ending, I think Wilson underestimated and undervalued her female characters in favor of going for a "shock" ending.

Throughout the novel Rene and Lucy come up against various obstacles. They have an inevitable meeting, but when the suspense portion of the novel takes hold — will they catch the Ripper or not? — and they join forces, the ending felt tacked-on, sped-through, and disappointing, to say the least.

The Lover does highlight how during wartime we may want our young men to be ruthless killers — in the air. It also examines how their constant fear of death and their job description — to kill or be killed — affects them. So many of Jim's fellow airmen are dealing with shell-shock or battle fatigue. At times it is hard to sort out the differences between what makes him such a brilliant killer in the cockpit from his psychotic need to kill on the ground. He can't seem to sort out his murderous urges, either.

Perhaps having to portray such a brutal hater of women, who can't connect with them or understand them, led Wilson to not being able to treat her two female leads with enough care. After we have met all of the people in Rene's and Lucy's lives, become involved in their individual stories, at the end of The Lover we have no idea what happened to any of them. Unfortunately, after telling three people's stories, the dreadful Jim takes primary focus. Once his story is at an end, so is the book.

Related articles

• Book Review: The Lover by Laura Wilson (blogcritics.org)

a life gone haywire

Article first published as Book Review: Haywire, 2011 Edition by Brooke Hayward on Blogcritics.

Brooke Hayward starts her childhood memoir of growing up in Hollywood and beyond, Haywire, promising that the book will not be about her famous parents, but about herself and her two siblings. Haywire is written from a child's-eye view. Maybe no matter how much older you get, you can't help recounting your childhood memories as a child. When we are young, our parents seem like giants, and Brooke is always drawn back into telling a story about her mother and father — two fascinating, troubled, and larger-than-life people. Brooke's parents, at least in her eyes, never quite lost their power over the family, even as they all grew up and away from each other.

Brooke's mother was film and stage actress Margaret Sullavan, best-known for her roles in The Shop Around the Corner and The Good Fairy. Her father was Hollywood and Broadway agent Leland Hayward. Sullavan cultivated a sweet, slightly mannered, screen presence. But looking at the bare facts of her life she was a bit of a siren, even femme fatale. She married Henry Fonda (for two months), director William Wyler (two years), and also had a relationship with Broadway producer Jed Harris before marrying big-shot agent Hayward. While she was simultaneously "dating" Harris and Hayward, so was her acting rival Katherine Hepburn. The two actresses were vying for the same parts and same men, not necessarily in that order. Her affair with Harris aparently broke up her marriage to Fonda, "I couldn't believe my wife and that son-of-a-bitch were in bed together. But I knew they were. And that just destroyed me, completely destroyed me."

As much as Brooke's story is peppered with famous names (family friends were Jimmy Stewart and the Fonda clan — Sullavan and Fonda managed to stay close, no matter what happened between them), you don't really feel as if she is name-dropping. She's painting the picture of what it was like to be a Hollywood scion. But Haywire takes the reader beyond the usual growing-up-Hollywood story. Its recounting of the tragic deaths of Sullavan and her two youngest children form the tragic background of Brooke's life and book. Sullavan died of what is presumed to be an accidental overdose on New Year's Day, 1960. She had a history of depression, and Haywire outlines in detail her controlling behavior and very conflicted personality. Brooke's younger sister Bridget died less than a year later than her mother, another drug overdose, classified as suicide. Her brother Bill died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2008.

Haywire at times reads like a mystery story, as Brooke and the reader try to unravel a mystery that is beyond our reach. What brought these people, who seemingly had everything, to feel that life wasn't worth living? Would medication have helped? All three spent time in mental institutions, and were medicated (and probably poked and prodded). It's clear from Brooke's conversations with Bill that she believes that her brother's problems were directly influenced by his parents' committing him when he was just a teenager.

CW: Brooke Hayward, Margaret Sullavan, Bridget Hayward

Sullavan was a complex woman, who, no matter how many times she may have said that she wanted to retire or distance herself from Hollywood, "Perhaps I'll get used to this bizarre place called Hollywood, but I doubt it," clearly was an actress first and foremost, at home and on the stage and screen. She seemed to teeter back and forth between wanting to be part of "a regular family," and then disappearing for months at a time from home to appear in a play, with her children raised by a nanny that they felt physically and emotionally closer to than either parent.


Sullavan and Hayward probably never should have become parents. They virtually ignored the day-to-day lives of their children, using nannies as buffers. When Sullavan "retired" and started really spending time with the family all hell broke loose. Brooke traces the dissolution of her family to her parents' divorce, but it's clear there were already serious issues. These people didn't really know each other, even like each other, very much. A child only sees problems in a family after a certain age. Brooke's parents divorced when she was 10. That's about the age when a kid's memories become more linear. I can remember isolated events or even images from a much younger age, but I didn't have a good sense of my parents and their personalities, other than "Mommy" and "Daddy" until I was 10. That's when I started noticing things weren't perfect in our family, too.

It's actually more awful to me to think that Brooke felt her family started to fall apart after the divorce — that the good times in their lives were the hazy memories she has of her childhood when her parents were still together — and completely wound up in their careers and each other and ignoring their children. She has nostalgia for a family that never really existed, except in Life magazine publicity photos.

Life at home with the Haywards: Leland, Brooke, Bridget and Margaret Sullavan (in an apron!)

Was Margaret Sullavan any nuttier than the rest of us? There are definitely Mommy Dearest moments. Sullavan and her eldest daughter would battle frequently. Sullavan never raised her voice, but instead gave Brooke the silent treatment, not speaking to her, sometime for days, until she got what she considered a proper apology. When Brooke's sister Bridget turned up her nose at her breakfast of runny eggs, the nanny wouldn't let her leave the table until she finished them. The horrible eggs dried up and became progressively more disgusting as the day wore on, but the child sat at the table, silent, until the nanny finally gave up and sent her to bed without eating anything that day.

Brooke may not have completely succeeded in telling her brother's and sister's stories. They still seem pale shadows compared to Sullavan and Hayward and herself. But Haywire is a heartbreaking and fascinating read. It raises so many questions about the neuroses of actors and the incestuous careers and love lives of everyone in Hollywood. Brooke's great friendship with the Fonda children — Jane and Peter — did  they stay friends as they grew older? Did she ever speak to them about their own mother's suicide? One would think they might have tried to puzzle out their individual tragedies together. What about Brooke's life with Dennis Hopper (they were married 1961-9)? And her own children? They are briefly mentioned as having existed, and then nothing more. What about Bill's children? I wish she would write another book, about her life post-Haywire. I'm sure it would be a good read, too.

"Katharine Hepburn: A Remarkable Woman," By Anne Edwards, Google Books

Margaret Sullavan, personal quotes, imdb

just kids

Article first published as Book Review: Just Kids by Patti Smith on Blogcritics.


Just Kids, Patti Smith's beautiful book about her youth with Robert Mapplethorpe, who she calls "the artist of my life" is a celebration, an elegy, a memoir, and a fascinating slice of life of New York City from the late sixties and seventies. It's also a study of two very different artists, with very different sensibilities.

Patti was very bohemian. She came from a poor background, with a loving family. She never finished college, but was well-read, especially in Symbolist poetry and her hero, Arthur Rimbaud. Patti spent most of her twenties trying to find herself. She wasn't focused on being a star, but an artist. Generous of spirit, she wanted at first be a muse, then an artist in her own right. Seemingly having little or no ego, she wanted everyone she met to succeed. She must have had a healthy ego to become a rock star, but it never seems to be of a competitive nature. She was the quintessential hippie.

Robert, on the other hand, was obsessed with becoming a successful artist, a star, from the get-go. He was also willing to do whatever it would take to make the big time—hanging out at the right places, hustling, befriending the rich and famous. He wanted to be as big, or bigger, than Andy Warhol. When Patti met him he was already a serious artist, with a strong work ethic, secure in his own sensibility and the themes he wanted to explore. He was less secure in his persona, his sexuality, and how he presented himself to the world. Or maybe it wasn't that he was less secure, but he was just less forthright.

Both kids grew up with fairly strict religious backgrounds, but their experiences with the church had different effects on their lives and work. In Patti it seemed to deepen her work and give her a place to start from—especially when she could pray her own way, "I was relived when I no longer had to mouth the words If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take and could instead say what was in my heart. Thus freed, I would lie in my bed ... mouthing long letters to God." Mapplethorpe may never had made peace with his Catholicism, which was partially responsible for his at-first hidden sexuality. "His dual nature troubled me, mostly because I feared it troubled him. ... His Catholic preoccupation with good and evil reasserted itself, as if he had to choose one over the other. He had broken from the Church, now it was breaking within him."

Robert was the perfect boyfriend and lover for Patti—for a short time. She may not have cottoned on for a while to why they drifted apart physically, but he did encourage her creatively, and while maybe not her true love(r), he was undoubtedly her soul mate. Patti slept on stoops and in Washington Square Park when she first arrived without a cent in New York city in the mid-60s. She experienced first-hand the effect drugs had on her friends and idols. She was in the middle of a whirlwind of unrest and change, but she was still a naive kid from the suburbs. The early deaths of 60s musical superstars and the more public emergence of gay literary and cultural figures like William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg were a part of her day-to-day life. Patti was young and naive, but she was also a part of her time. She might not have been so oblivious to Robert's sexual orientation or as pure in her artistic pursuits if her story took place twenty years later. Patti's was a different time and a different New York than today, but many young people did and still do have the New York experience Robert did. Willing to do anything in order to become a star in whatever art form they are pursuing—painting, music, acting.

The Chelsea Hotel was their Montmartre, their source and hotbed of creativity. For every young artist, young person, there is a time and place that is almost sacred. It's where and when they found their true peers, had their first deep personal and artistic experiences, were independent. For Patti it was the Chelsea Hotel. While she lived there with Robert she met her idols (Janis Joplin, William S. Burroughs), contemporaries (Sam Shepherd, Todd Rundgren) and really felt a part of something. She watched from afar so many of her idols die—Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison. No matter how many deaths of young artists  send her in a tailspin and reminded her of her hero Rimbaud, she and Robert never considered it could happen to one of them.

Patti brings that time and her experience of being a young artist in the late 60s and 70s to life. She has a real sense of New York history, and when she mentions that she went to a club to do a reading of her poetry she also mentions that the building once was once a saloon frequented by Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady, or some other historical figure and anecdote. As much as things change in the city, its history is constant and pervades. 

Patti may not have wanted to acknowledge how her relationship with Robert had changed, or even how others perceived their relationship, but she was the first to realize that she needed something else, something more. No matter how different Robert's goals were, or how far they drifted apart, Patti never judges, she just loves. And you get a sense that Robert, even if he was a little jealous or disapproving of her latest boyfriend, also never judged her. They encouraged each other, egged each other on. She told him, "You should take your own pictures," when he complained that images he cut out of men's magazines just weren't right for his latest collage. He told her that she should sing songs, not just write and read her poetry. They are true to each other. Peas in a pod. They practically lived in each other's pockets for 8 years.

They eventually must grow apart, their art and their lives diverging. Patti started to find success with her band and went on tour. Back in New York, with the help of a wealthy lover and patron, Robert concentrated fully on his photography, and imbued all his subject matter, whether it was a stunning flower, socialite, or naked male torso, with an exacting, brutal elegance. Patti may not always have related to his subject matter, but she understood and appreciated why he did. "Robert was not a voyeur ... he wasn't taking pictures for the sake of sensationalism ... he never felt his underground world was for everybody."

The book ends with their last days and conversations, as Mapplethorpe died of AIDs in 1989. It's clear that he will always be important for Smith. She took a vow to protect him when they were just kids and she is still taking care of him, eloquently sharing his legacy through her evocative memories and stories.




Book #10 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba

Related articles

• NY's storied Chelsea Hotel hits market (alternet.org)
• 'All I ever wanted to do was something wonderful' (guardian.co.uk)

the afflicted girls

Article first published as Book Review: The Afflicted Girls by Suzy Witten on Blogcritics.

The Salem Witch Trials have always held a fascination for me. I've had a hearty dislike for Cotton Mather ever since reading The Crucible in junior high. It's difficult for me to relate to a learned man who can be forward-thinking in relation to disease, by encouraging inoculations against smallpox, but be so backward-thinking when it came to witchcraft in Puritan New England. It's hard not to think that there might have been a misogynist angle to his attitudes, as Mather called one of the accused, Martha Carrier, "A rampant hag" and reporting the trial of Bridget Bishop in his Wonders of the Invisible World, he wrote "John Louder testify'd, that upon some little controversy with Bishop ... he did awake in the Night by moonlight, and did see clearly the likeness of this woman grievously oppressing him; in which miserable condition she held him, unable to help himself, till near Day. He told Bishop of this; but she deny'd it, and threatened him very much. "

Mather is just a shadow figure in The Afflicted Girls, but the petty neighborly conflicts that Mather took such copious notes of that were at the root of a lot of the evil goings-on in Salem Village in the late 17th century are well-described in this fictional account. The author, Suzy Witten, takes her time building up the very large cast of characters and their layers of history, jealousy, and petty grievances in the daily life of Salem Village, and does it well. She has done her research, incorporating the threats of disease, Indian raids and poverty that also were factors in what happened. A real sense of the hard choices facing a young woman, no matter what social strata she belonged to, is also well-delineated. A daughter of a prosperous merchant or gentleman may not have to perform the menial household tasks of an indentured servant, but she had about as much freedom as did Mercy Lewis in the male-ruled Puritan society.

Witten takes an interesting tack, even a risk, in making her protagonist nineteen year-old Mercy Lewis. Thanks to the internet, the Salem Witch Trial transcripts can be read, and original documents even viewed. One can quickly learn that it's a big departure from history making Mercy a heroine, as she was one of the most frequent and vocal accusers of witches in the trials. I had a real shock of sadness and excitement when I discovered last year that I was actually descended from Sarah Averill Wildes, who along with Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good and Susannah Martin, was hanged as a witch in Salem on July 19, 1692. Since I found our Salem connection I have been cruising the internet, visited Salem and its environs, and read quite a few books on the subject, fiction and non-fiction, to try and learn as much as I could about my ancestor. One of the things I discovered was that Mercy Lewis was one of the accusers of my ancestor, Sarah Averill Wildes. But no hard feelings. I don't mind the author's angle, and I liked Mercy as a character in this book.

House of Ann Putman Jr, Off Dayton Street, Danvers, MA, where Mercy Lewis was indentured, ca. 1891

The real Mercy Lewis lost her family to an Indian raid when she was just a child in Maine. In fact it is believed she may have seen them all killed and carried that gruesome memory with her to Salem. An orphan, the only way she could survive was to be indentured as a servant, first to the Reverend George Burroughs, who was also executed in Salem as a witch, and later the family of Thomas Putnam, where she met Ann Putman, Jr. (Lucy in this book). She had virtually nothing and could only survive on her wits and her employer's good graces until her term of indenture was over, which typically lasted seven years. She would have no prospects for marriage until she was free. If she had a child while indentured, her length of term would be increased. Witten endows Mercy with herbalist and midwife skills and introduces the possibility that what happened with those crazy Salem kids might have been drug-related (from a hallucinogenic plant). It's not a bad twist to take. Her hypothesis may be right or wrong, or possibly partly the truth. Why Salem still fascinates—it's about human nature—the not-so-nice side of people. It didn't take much for fear and accusations to take root, whether drug or mischief-fueled.

I had some major historical questions and quibbles while reading The Afflicted Girls. Witten changed the most well-known of the accusers, Ann Putnam, Jr.'s, name to Lucy—maybe to differentiate her from her mother, who also was an accuser? But it actually made it more confusing for me, waiting for the real Ann jr. to show up. Also, a scene at Gallows Hill had a cherry-picked assortment of the people who were accused, not as they actually died. And there was a daring jail escape was beyond fictional, but in the realm of fantasy, considering how meticulously she had tried to depict the Village in earlier chapters. The author's note stated that the book started as a screenplay, so some of these changes may have been made in that light, to bring her most flamboyant "characters" together in one big scene. In fact, sometimes it felt as if there were parts that were written for the book, and scenes which were put in to sex things up.

Deposition of Mercy Lewis v. Susannah Martin

Which brings me to my major bone of contention with the novel. It's probably easiest to use the movie Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd as a similar example. Sweeney Todd had beautiful music and great acting by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, but that was all but drowned out for me by all the endless, repetitive decapitations — one after another after another after another. The sex scenes had the same effect in The Afflicted Girls. It's not bodice-ripping romantic novel sex. It's repeated, multiple scenes of rape and unpleasant coupling by unpleasant people. Salem Village surely had its share of horrible men and women, but were they all sexually messed up or predators? Witten may be trying to comment on the Puritan ethic and attitudes toward sex, but the reader is the one who gets degraded too many times along with poor Mercy. I'm not sure it would have been appropriate to make her a feminist hero, either, but she is victimized or sexualized by basically every man who meets her, and she doesn't become much more than a victim, buffeted about by the claustrophobic and brutal world she inhabits.

Unsavory sex aside, there are some interesting aspects to The Afflicted Girls and I definitely felt like I was back in Salem Village, it's just not a nice place to be.


Book #8 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba

Full disclosure: The author sent this book to me after reading another book review I had written for The Heretic's Daughter, also a book about the Salem Witch Trials. I'm very thankful to be considered a critic of books, movies and other pop culture and I will continue to be fair in my reviews.

Related articles

• Book Review: The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent (blogcritics.org)
• Famous Trials: The Witches of Salem (neatorama.com)
• Book Review: The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent (seattlepi.com)

the heretic's daughter

Article first published as Book Review: The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent on Blogcritics.


If you are interested in one of the most fateful chapters of early American history and want to experience the Salem witch trials from the viewpoint of a young girl, there is much to like in The Heretic's Daughter. It's hard to fail with a story about the events that happened in and around Salem in 1692. The fact that a bunch of girls, whether hysterical, spiteful, misguided, or a combination of all of the above, could bring a town and then a region to its knees with accusations of witchcraft will forever be fascinating. That so many people suffered and died as a result of their behavior will always be tragic. That we should never forget how easy it is to become party to a witch hunt is instructive.

Title page of "Wonders of the Invisible World," 1693, by Cotton Mather, John Dounton, London, 1693.

The drama is already built into The Heretic's Daughter, which tells the story of one of the victims, Martha Carrier. What is interesting and different about this book is that it is told through the eyes of Martha's daughter, so the focus is on how her predicament affects her family. In the atmosphere of fear and accusation that characterized the Salem Witch Trials, anyone who was connected to an accused witch was subject to the same suspicions and danger. As family members were carted away to trials and prison, the necessary duties of life—gathering food, protecting the homestead, and caring for children were jeopardized.

The book starts off well, with author Kathleen Kent bringing to life the 17th-century town of Andover, Massachusetts and its daily life. Andover, a neighboring town to Salem Village, was still not far enough away to escape the atmosphere of fear and finger-pointing that started there. Kent does a good job of introducing factors that led to a general feeling of paranoia, dread and depression in the Massachusetts winter of 1691—the threat of Indian raids, smallpox outbreaks, bad harvests.

Her depiction of the claustrophobic and beyond-unsanitary conditions of the prisoners in Salem Jail is also well-done. It's a little known fact, or at least, not as frequently written about, how long the accused spent in the Salem jail. Some, even after they were exonerated for witchcraft, had to remain in prison because their families couldn't afford to pay their fees. The victim was expected to pay the costs of his own imprisonment.

Somewhere about halfway through, however, the book loses its way a little. Kent's narrator, Sarah Carrier, tells the story in increasingly florid metaphor, which gets progressively harder to slog through. "A child is like an early spring bulb that carries all the resources needed within its skin for the first push through the soil towards the sun. And just as a little bit of water can start the bulb to grow, even through fissured rock, so can a little kindness give a child the ability to push through the dark."

Passages like this one repeatedly use the farm and harvest to make a point. We get it, farming was life to these people. "But then, as I lay sweating in bed, restless and prickly, it came to me that to harvest a field of corn one does not wade into the dark middle of things and cut the stalks from the inside out. It is best done starting with the outside ears and working inward, stalk by stalk, keeping the light of the sun always at one's back so that its rays can illuminate each ear of corn, be it whole and sweet or black and blighted. And in this way does one make a meal that feeds a starving body back to wholeness."

The book is being told from the perspective of an elderly Sarah telling her granddaughter her childhood memories of the events of Salem and Martha Carrier. Surely her life had expanded a little beyond the hard life of the farm by her dotage? Or at least, she could tell it like it was, rather than constantly reverting to metaphor? "I believe many of us would peel ourselves away from our immortal selves as easily as the skin from a boiled plum if it meant we could remain on the earth for awhile, our bellies full and our beds warm and safe at night."

It's not that Kent is a bad writer or that the imagery is bad—it just gets a bit much. The author is a descendant of Martha Carrier, so I'm sure all of the flowery phrasings were her attempt to do justice to her ancestors. Her recently published book, The Wolves of Andover, which I haven't read, is a story about Martha Carrier's meeting her husband Tom, and his life before coming to America. His shadowy past was one of the weaker aspects for me of The Heretic's Daughter, as Kent could never adequately explain why the father was able to escape the persecution most of the rest of his family was subjected to.

Memorial to the victims of the Salem witch trials, Salem, Massachusetts

I applaud Kent's interest in her family's history and her attempts to bring it to life. I am a descendant of Sarah Wildes, one of the first five people hanged as a witch in Salem. So many of the people who were targeted as witches were strong thinkers, or just plain ornery, or had some quarrel with neighbors, which were used against them later as the hysteria spread from town to town. Kent does a good job in showing the petty resentments and small-town prejudices that made the perfect seeding ground for such accusations to grow. Now she has me plying metaphor as well.

I wish her characters had a stronger reaction when told of the first executions. There is a scene where they mention Bridget Bishop, the first person who was hanged in June. But surely people must have realized how seriously crazy things were getting when they hanged five women—Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin and my ancestor Sarah Wildes on July 19, 1692. Kent's characters all seem so stoic, thinking that reason or the distance from Salem to Andover will protect them. Kent is entitled to her interpretation. Maybe for many it was like walking through a bad dream until the blow finally came.


Book #7 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba

Related articles

• 'Wolves' revisits Colonial America, losing its way in the wilderness (boston.com)
• Famous Trials: The Witches of Salem (neatorama.com)

wolf hall

Article first published as Book Review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel on Blogcritics.



After watching The Tudors, with the wonderful James Frain as Thomas Cromwell, it was impossible to read Wolf Hall without a sense of dread—fear and knowledge of what's coming, for all of them—Cromwell, Henry the VIII, Anne Boleyn, Katherine of Aragon. But even with apprehension for the inevitable fates lurking around the corner for these characters and historical figures, Wolf Hall is a wonderful book, a great read.

James Frain as Thomas Cromwell in The Tudors

There is something still so poignant, so fascinating, about a king who was so obsessed with a woman, with having a male heir, so torn between what he thinks is right and his heart's desire, that he would eventually sacrifice everything—his queen, his Catholicism, his political ties. Henry Tudor's story, his desperate attempts to continue his personal Tudor dynasty, wouldn't be interesting if it solely centered on the fact that he and Katherine couldn't have children and he cast her aside for a younger woman. Other kings did the same in the same situation.

What makes the story, the history so enduringly fascinating is Henry VIII himself. His conscience and religious fears refused to allow him to just discard Katherine—at first. Henry wanted the church and his peers to approve, or at least not stand in his way. The timing of his great problem coincided with the Reformation. Disaffection was rising with the control exerted by the Catholic Church on people's, and most importantly in England's case, king's lives. Henry and his advisors, most of all Thomas Cromwell, saw the opportunity to change England's position both politically and religiously, shaking off the hold the Holy Roman Empire had on them. Not only a potential new heir was to be gained, but all the money that went to Rome and the Church could now be funneled to "poor" king Henry, if Cromwell, where his predecessor Cardinal Wolsey and so many others had failed, was able to succeed in getting Henry what he wanted.

As Cromwell is told, and as he tells everyone in in his household, "Arrange your face." Everyone involved in the king's "great matter" had an angle, just as everyone in life and politics does today. Henry wants a son. Cromwell wants a king he can influence. Anne Boleyn wants to be Queen. Katherine is queen and doesn't want to see her daughter Mary, the rightful heir, disinherited. But these desires are not pure, they are motivated by outward pressures. Henry by his masculinity and obsession with his Tudor lineage. Cromwell needing to make a better place in the uncertain world for himself and his family. Each of the central players is torn between two opposing forces. Henry his strong religious beliefs and guilt. Cromwell between his past loyalty to Cardinal Wolsey and his desire to break the Catholic Church's hold on England and be the perfect, best advisor to Henry. Anne Boleyn between her ambitions to be queen and her desire to be an independent woman who can love who she wants. Katherine between her enduring love for Henry and her desire to not lose face or position—the proud daughter of Spain's Ferdinand and Isabella, she has lived in England since she was a child, but she can't go back to Spain and she can't remain England's queen.

Henry's reconciliation with Anne Boleyn, etching, published by Cunningham & Mortimer, 1842.

Anne Boleyn is always fascinating. How did she exert such a hold over Henry for the seven years it took to make her queen? Not just because she wouldn't sleep with him. She had a mind and modern attitudes about religion. She was fresh and new, represented hope. She wasn't like anyone the sheltered Henry had ever met before. As the second son Henry would have gone into the church if his older brother, the heir, hadn't died and left him, the spare, as king. The Boleyns wanting to be "the" family in England, so they push first one daughter, than the other at any king who will have them. Using their daughters as political pawns and sexual favors, older sister Mary is offered as a king's plaything, first to Francois I of France and later to Henry. Even after her sister Anne managed to achieve the impossible and become queen, Mary was still at Henry's service until she managed to escape—but only by marrying into obscurity. Her social-climbing family were so ashamed that she had eloped with a commoner they cut her off and she all-but-disappears from history.

Cromwell put his hopes in Anne and the Boleyns, even though he saw how dangerous a risk that was. Precarious times for everyone—Cromwell at the whim of the Kings favor, Anne's fortunes dependent on whether she can produce a healthy male heir, Henry's kingdom and legacy based on whether he can father a prince.

The story is so dense, so intricate. All of this political intrigue and what passed for romance at the Tudor court is still just background to the real story of Wolf Hall, the depiction of the man, Thomas Cromwell. Hilary Mantel's Cromwell is a genius at adapting to his surroundings. Born to a blacksmith, he runs away from an abusive father and makes his way to France and Italy as a servant, soldier and ultimately advisor. How a blacksmith's son could travel the world, learn law, multiple languages and manage to carve out for himself a dynasty back in England is made utterly believable. But Cromwell remains a puzzle to those who surround him. "A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguessed-at expression of his face. It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires." Mantel brings history to life with her Cromwell, a modern man, forward-thinking and always on the alert for advancement. Anne Boleyn could never have become queen and Henry would never have become the head of the Church of England if not for Cromwell.

In the Netherlands Cromwell met his wife and worked in the wool trade. Eventually he returned to England and found a place in the household of Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor to Henry, where he quickly advanced, due to his fine wit and legal knowledge. He learns from Wolsey the appreciation of the finer things of life, but like Wolsey is not a "gentleman." Wolsey was the son of a butcher and the noblemen who surround Henry never let either of them forget their low origins. The lords treat Cromwell with disdain, exactly like they treated the cardinal. But where Wolsey eventually fell, Cromwell manages to not fall with him, a huge feat in itself, and catches Henry's eye and respect—as long as he continues to provide good counsel and help Henry get what he wants. Everyone condescends to "Le Cremuel," but he lets all slights and abuse fall off of him. He endured much worse before he came to Henry's court.

Portrait of Thomas Cromwell. New York, Frick Collection. Oak panel, 76 x 61 cm.
Date between 1532 and 1533, The Frick Collection, Hans Holbein the Younger (1498–1543).

Cromwell is a keen observer of people and has a true survivor's intellect, always watching how the wind blows and how it might serve his advantage. But he never seems scheming—just bound and determined to give his family the best and most secure future that he can. One of the best parts of the book is Mantel's take on Cromwell's generous nature. He loves a full household. He can see the potential in anyone, from a young lord sent to him to learn accounting, to a tavern boy who has lived by his wits from moment to moment. He finds a place for all of them in his household and gives them shelter and opportunities. From this he gets the family that he never had as a boy and replaces the family (wife and two daughters) that he lost too soon to the sweating sickness.

Wolf Hall was written over the span of five years. Mantel told The Wall Street Journal that "The trickiest part was trying to match her version to the historical record. ... You really need to know, where is the Duke of Suffolk at the moment? You can't have him in London if he's supposed to be somewhere else." Such attention to detail pays off, as the reader really feels how Henry and his court pull Cromwell closer, inch by inch, day by day.  If I have any criticism of the book it is Mantel's choice to write Cromwell using only "he" to identify him and portray his thoughts and impressions. She obviously wanted to avoid writing in the first-person "I" to avoid Cromwell sounding narcissistic, or the third person and make him seem distant. But it makes it a little confusing to know who is speaking at times, with so many potential "hes" to choose from in this huge cast of characters. It's an affectation, but you get used to it, and the rest of the book is so great it becomes only a minor annoyance.

The importance of religion plays a huge part in Wolf Hall and the fate of its characters. Religion played such an important part in people's lives at that time, because it was interwoven into all aspects of life. The Catholic church ruled all, including the King. Cromwell wants to break the Church's hold on land and money and government, freeing both Henry and his people. As much as Cromwell loved Wolsey, he realizes while still with the Cardinal that they can never achieve what really needs to be done in England. A member of the Church is still responsible to the Church. Cromwell has much more power and flexibility as Henry's advisor.

Mantel's Cromwell witnessed the burning of a "heretic" at a young age and the author doesn't stint on the depiction of how horrible a death that was, nor what a spectacle. How many of the people that were burned for simply wanting to read the Bible in English, rather than Latin is unclear. It is clear that the Church didn't want the common man to interpret the Bible in his own way and they weren't hesitant to burn men, women, and children to keep their hold and control on the text. According to Mantel and others, one of the most ardent burners and torturers of English heretics (before Henry's first-born, Bloody Mary) was Thomas More, who is portrayed at times in Wolf Hall as Cromwell's equal, mentor and great adversary. Mantel's More is a zealot and a man, not for all seasons, but lost in the past.

I was relieved that Wolf Hall didn't take me all the way to the end of Cromwell. It is clear as the book is two thirds through and Anne Boleyn has just been crowned queen that Mantel has lots more to tell about the Tudors and especially, Thomas Cromwell. Luckily, she is writing a second book. Hopefully it won't take another five years to complete, but I wouldn't want her to rush it through either, as his fall deserves as rich a treatment as his rise.

Book #6 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba

stardust

Article first published as Book Review: Stardust by Neil Gaiman on Blogcritics.

This book could have gone horribly wrong, become insufferably twee, but somehow, it didn't. Neil Gaiman's Stardust is a lovely little fairy tale. It's one of those books that as soon as you finish it, it sort of drifts away like fairy dust, but you will still want to pick it up again and re-read it sometime.

The Faerie market day, from Chris Jamison, Charles Vess image page

The story starts out in the Victorian-era village of Wall, which seems set in a time even older than Victorian England. This is most likely due to what's on the other side of the town and a literal wall, the land of Faerie: "In the tranquil fields and meadows of long-ago England, there is a small hamlet that has stood on a jut of granite for 600 years. Just to the east stands a high stone wall, for which the village is named. Here, in the hamlet of Wall, young Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester. And here, one crisp October eve, Tristran makes his love a promise—an impetuous vow that will send him through the only breach in the wall, across the pasture... and into the most exhilarating adventure of his life."

Young Tristran starts his journey with one goal—to win a beautiful girl by bringing her a fallen star. Gaiman is able to mix the flowery phrasing of fairytales with more contemporary speech patterns and attitudes to create a fairy tale for adults that is frequently funny. That should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Gaiman's work, as humor often plays a big part in his otherworldly novels, such as Neverwhere. His American Gods was a great mix of mythology and road-trip novel, with wonderfully sassy characters.

The fallen star Yvaine, by Charles Vess, from Green Man Press

"And there was a voice, a high clear, female voice, which said "Ow", and then, very quietly, it said "Fuck", and then it said "Ow", once more." Tristran has no idea that the star is actually a being until he meets her. He soon discovers that he is not the only one who is after her. A witch and her sisters believe that the heart of a star will help restore their youth and beauty.

Gaiman is definitely paying homage to Tolkien with some talking trees, as well as some other nods to fantasy-related classics, but Stardust is all his own. It's a mythical quest, where the quest turns out to be the least important aspect of the story. I read the novel version, but would now like to check out the beautifully illustrated edition he did with artist Charles Vess.

There was a movie made a few years back that has some major differences to Gaiman's book, mostly in the beefing-up of Robert DeNiro's sky-pirate character (he's a hoot). The film may not be quite as magical as the original, but it's fun, and any introduction to Gaiman's work is worthwhile.

Stardust is definitely a coming-of-age story with Tristran as its hero, but the female characters are the ones that make the most impact. The star Yvaine who glows with love, the cat-eared Una who is mother of Tristran, the witch-queen who hunts Yvaine, and the girl who starts it all, shallow Victoria, whose careless words send Tristran on the quest that will change his and many others' lives. Neil Gaiman supposedly would like to go back and revisit the village of Wall at some point and I would definitely be up for another trip there, too.

"Tristan and Yvaine were happy together. Not forever-after, for Time, the thief, eventually takes all things into his dusty storehouse, but they were happy, as these things go, for a long while"

Quotes from Goodreads


Book #5 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba

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shiver

I could swear one of the blogs I regularly read reviewed this book and thumbs-upped it a while back, but I can't find the review. Now that I've read it, I was curious to read the review again. Oh well. I bought this book for my almost sweet-sixteen niece for Xmas, but figured I better read it first, just to be sure it was o.k. Apart from one very discreet love scene, it was more than appropriate for a "young adult." In fact, the whole book reads like a very innocent teenage girl's dream—not the Katy Perry variety.

I wasn't exactly looking for or expecting sexy passages—I thought this would be more supernatural in nature, not pure romance, but I do find it interesting that there seems to be an innocence trend in teen-lit or YA. I haven't read the Twilight books—just flipping through the first few pages of the first book in the series in Target didn't encourage me. I've read most of the Percy Jackson series, which are pretty romance-free, prompted by said niece. Harry Potter manages a clinch or two in seven books. It's all very chaste. It's interesting.

The author made a lovely little trailer for her book—she did the collage and the music.

This book isn't about sex, although some folks might be instantly turned off by the potential bestiality implied in a girl-loves-werewolf story. It's a swoony, girly, love story. The heroine Grace stars out as a slightly eccentric girl, a survivor of a wolf attack who is now drawn to the pack that hangs out in the woods beyond her house, almost abnormally. She is smart and independent and I liked her. The boy she loves, Sam, is almost too perfect, too gentlemanly, too sweet. But he's the perfect magical boyfriend, complete with shaggy hair and golden eyes. I guess these guys are this generation's Prince Charmings. My generation had ... I'm not sure who. There really wasn't a young adult book category when I was going to Barnes and Noble. I read my Nancy Drews and then graduated to Grandma's John Jakes and Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins novels for a little sex. In school we passed around thriller novels like Carrie and Jaws.

The middle of the book where girl meets wolf boy, girl loves wolf boy, girl loses wolf boy is pure romance with a dash of suspense. The mysteries laid out are gentle and not too mysterious, but that doesn't seem to be the point. What stays with the reader is the atmosphere—the impending cold weather, the woods behind Grace's house, which seem quite real. There are a few undeveloped or abandoned threads—what about the wolf girl Shelby, who is set up as such a threatening antagonist? Will Sam ever see his mentor Beck again? But there is a sequel (now part two of a trilogy), which I haven't read, but might, if I really want to see how some of this turns out. It depends on how much my niece likes this first book. I'm eager to hear her teenage opinion and see if her perspective of the story and characters differs widely from mine. Not surprisingly, there is a film version in the works.

Mostly I liked the author Maggie Stiefvater's twist on werewolf lore. Her werewolves are tied to the seasons and nature, changing into wolves at the first hint of frost, then back to human form in the summertime. It doesn't always make sense, but it is still intriguing and atmospheric and enough of a necessary obstacle for the young lovers that will intrigue young readers.

Book #4 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba

actually my dear ... i do give a damn

I've mentioned before that I was not a huge fan of the movie Gone with the Wind. It's an undeniable classic, and a bit of Hollywood history. But it also had so many melodramatic and unbelievable character behaviors that it tried my patience. But I have been hearing from friends and the internets over the years that I should read the original source—that would make a huge difference in how I viewed the film. Well, I finally did, and they were right. I can't say that it has risen on my list of favorite films, but after reading Margaret Mitchell's opus (on the iPad, yes, I'm a little nutty) and then re-watching GWTW over the holidays I will say that it was a much better, richer viewing experience. Another thing my friends, etc. were right about—it's a great book.

Gone with the Wind is a famous parable of the end of the South and its ways. But what makes Gone with the Wind a classic and has stayed with readers is the complex character of Scarlett O'Hara. One of the most famous heroines in literature, Scarlett makes an art of procrastination.

I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow. [Book & Film]

I was surprised at how much of the dialogue from the book is used in the film, practically verbatim, but still manages to get the emphasis not exactly wrong, but very, very different. The movie is a romance with a historical back-drop. The book uses romance to thread the reader through the history of the fall of the South and its people's customs, beliefs and dreams. The book was an incredible effort on its author's part, and it is a true slice-of-the past. I highly recommend reading Mitchell's one-and-only published novel for her interpretation of what happened on the Civil War's homefront. And from here on I'll be giving away major plot points, so if you've somehow managed to avoid the book or the movie or the famous line "Frankly my dear ..." consider yourself warned.

As a born and bred Yankee, it wasn't hard at all for me to hear the interminable "damn Yankees" dialogue—the story is told from an entirely Southern viewpoint. But the phonetic speech of the great character of Mammy and the other "darkies" was hard to take. I'm sure for many contemporary readers it will be a deal-killer.

Fo' Gawd, Miss Scarlett! We's got ter have a doctah. Ah- Ah- Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nuthin' 'bout bringin' babies. [Book]

The phonetic speech may have been a technique used by Mitchell to portray the differences in the cultures of the southern blacks and the white plantation folks. But we never get a closer look at the lives of the slaves at Tara or after they're emancipated. The complaisance of Scarlett, and her oft-repeated belief that blacks were better off "in the old days" may have been the prevailing attitude of the day, but it was still alienating and grated on my modern ears. Scarlett's complete non-understanding of the Yankee viewpoint on slavery was a reflection of Mitchell's upbringing and source material.

[Mitchell's] childhood was spent in the laps of Civil War veterans and of her maternal relatives, who had lived through the Civil War. ... Among [Mary Gay's] books, the most famous is Life in Dixie During the War, one of the few eyewitness accounts written by women and a source Margaret Mitchell used for Gone with the Wind. There have also been several recent studies done that show a vast similarity between Gone With The Wind and the Civil War diaries of Mary Chesnut.—Wikipedia

Mitchell almost entirely skipped over the subject of the morality of slavery or whether the South was justified in pursuing war against the North, preferring to allow the reader to decide these issues, based upon the actions or inaction of the novel's characters.—Wikipedia

Mitchell may have sidestepped slavery in her novel, but she isn't just pushing "The Cause," either. Rhett Butler is the walking wake-up call that no character south of the Mason-Dixon line will heed.

Rhett Butler: Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance.

Scarlett: Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war; this war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides... there isn't going to be any war. [Film]

Scarlett O'Hara has to be one of the most irritating, at times stupid, central characters in an American novel. She is to be admired for her courage and pluck—there's no denying that the girl was a survivor. She was extremely young and unworldly when her world, the whole world, fell apart. But most people grow or at least learn something from great adversity. Scarlett just seems to get more stubborn in her ideé fixe on Ashley Wilkes and bone-headed in her attitudes towards Rhett Butler and just about everyone as she gets older.

As annoying a character as she is, she does make for a good read. I grew up in such a different world and era that it's hard for me to connect to why she holds on to her outdated ideas of Ashley's chivalry for so long. Even Ashley knows that his ship has sailed, the South is no more, but she never listens. She's been married multiple times, had multiple children (not shown in the movie), finally experienced good sex with third husband Rhett—and yet she is deluded enough to turn Rhett out of her bedroom so that she can stay "true" to Ashley? How can she still be naive enough to believe that Ashley and Melanie don't have sex since Doctor Meade cautioned Melanie about the dangers to her health if she tried having more babies? With all that Scarlett has been through, she is still the little belle who thinks if she just bats her eyes enough she will get that elusive man.

After reading it all, and watching the film again I can say, yes, she is that naive. Scarlett's attitude towards men is not too different from the matrimony-obsessed reality show dim-bulbs we are subjected to these days. She is a step above them surely—for her sheer guts, courage and willingness to work hard to get what she wants—but she is selfish and ruthless and doesn't care who she stomps on in her little satin slippers on her path to riches. She births children and then forgets about them completely.

Rhett Butler: A cat's a better mother than you. [Book & Film]

Is it the war that has done this to her? Or did the war only pave the way for her to indulge in her most characteristic traits and take them to the extreme? Scarlett's power as a literary heroine is that she is as strong and ruthless as a James Bond or some other mythic hero.

... life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman's lot. It was a man's world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving. [Book]

This paragraph from Gone with the Wind is the key for me to Scarlett. She is caught between what her mother taught her, which point-for-point is to be subservient to men but rule the roost—just never let the man know. In essence, as Rhett referes to her, a lovely little hypocrite. But Scarlett's true nature is to be the absolute opposite of everything her mother taught her. Scarlett owns and manages property (Tara, Frank Kennedy's store, and the saw mill). Scarlett drinks secretly, sometimes to the point of getting drunk. Scarlett is always outspoken, and she is never kind, gracious or forgiving. But she is in no way masculine or trying to take on the role of a man in Southern society. Her simple, direct mind just sees that she is as smart as any man, so why shouldn't she do as she pleases? She certainly never intends to wait patiently for anyone else to do it for her. She is a pragmatic feminist, but she would be horrified if that fact was pointed out to her (if she could even understand it), as she holds on to her persistent self-delusion that she is still a Southern belle, modeling herself after her mother.

The film, even more than the book, places great emphasis on Tara, the power and draw of the land for Scarlett.

Gerald O'Hara: Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, for ’tis the only thing in this world that lasts. [Book]

Gerald O'Hara: Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that land doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts. [Film]

Scarlett does feels strongly about saving Tara for her family, but I would argue that it is the concept of "home" and not land that draws her back again and again to Tara. She seemed more than ready to abandon it for the white columns of the Wilkes's grander Twelve Oaks plantation without even a backward glance. When she is truly terrified, when the Yankees have reached where she is staying in Atlanta with Melanie, all she wants to do is go home—home to Tara. But actually, what she wants is to rush home to her mother, where she knows she will feel safe. Unfortunately she discovers when she reaches Tara that her mother has recently died from typhoid, her sisters are still recovering very slowly from the debilitating illness, her father is mad with grief, everyone is almost starving, and Tara is a ruin. Talk about having every dream shattered all at once.

Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: 'As God is my witness, and God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill—as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again. [Book]

Scarlett: As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again. [Film]

Tara is her father's land—it represents how hard the Irish immigrant worked to become part of the American South. Scarlett will do anything to preserve her father's legacy—she sells herself to her sister's fiance Frank Kennedy to do it, with no regard for the feelings of her sister or Frank—but once she's saved it, Tara's pretty much gone from her thoughts until the last page of the book.

Where Scarlett truly finds connection and spends most of the book is the newborn city of Atlanta. They are both shiny and a bit tawdry, and bold and mercenary. They are knocked down by the horrors of war and the Yankees, but unstoppable. They stand up to fight and rebuild themselves. I've yet to visit Atlanta, but I know that it would be impossible not to think of Scarlett O'Hara being synonymous with  the city after reading this book.

How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed! 

A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright. [Book]

Scarlett's real refuge is Rhett, that "dishonorable cheat and liar" (just like herself, although she would never admit it.) One of her strongest traits, which provokes shock in her friends and relatives, is her keen and frequently ruthless business sense. She inherited her father's wily mind and her mother's practical nature. Mitchell makes it clear that Mrs. O'Hara was the fine business mind and the strong hand that really ran the plantation. Mr. O'Hara was able to build it, with guile and guts and hard work. But it was the Mrs. that turned it into a successful venture. Scarlett was a perfect combination of her parents, although they both would have frowned on her bold tactics to get what she needs. But Scarlett had to reinvent herself and break or ignore the rules to make any real progress. She may not have been properly ladylike, but she was a damn good businesswoman. Rhett has no problem with Scarlett being an entrepreneur, even a slightly shady one. The only issues he seems to have with her in that regard is that she not be a hypocrite about it.

Rhett Butler: You're like the thief who isn't the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he's going to jail. [Film]

What might elicit shock in modern readers is how harshly Scarlett is judged for behavior that is so commonplace for women today—being the sole proprietor of a business, going to the office unescorted, bargaining with "foreigners" (the Yankees), being better at something than a man. Scarlett isn't a feminist heroine, exactly. Her ideas about love and marriage are just too messed-up to applaud, but she is a feminist. She believes in her gut that a woman can not only do the same work as a man, but do it better, and then puts that into action.

Gone with the Wind excels at telling the story of the people who don't go to war. The women who stay behind and run the homes and farms and businesses for their absent men. The younger generation that grows up in a world without men. The elderly parents who are pulled out of their cozy years to slog away in the fields and wait for sons and grandsons that never return.

Clark Gable, 1938 Publicity Shot from Webdesigner Depot

But what about Rhett Butler? Gone with the Wind is undeniably Scarlett's story, but one can't ignore that the only completely likable character is Rhett. I think Rhett's audience-sympathy meter is high, not only because of his character's charm, but because Rhett is the only modern character. Scarlett, although modern in some ways, is still pretty antiquated in her ideas of love and sex and womanhood.

Scarlett: He looks as if... as if he knows what I look like without my shimmy. 

Rhett Butler: No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how. [Book & film]

Scarlett seems to have gained a sliver of self-awareness at the end of the book, but only where it concerns Ashley Wilkes.

I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes-and not him at all. [Book]

But she really blew it with Rhett. And in her usual hard-headed way, refuses to see it.

Rhett: My dear, I don’t give a damn. [Book]
Scarlett: Rhett, Rhett... Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?
Rhett Butler: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. [Film]

I doubt that she could actually win Rhett back, the power of the red earth of Tara notwithstanding. I think he's done. It was a big step for him to give Scarlet the "proper" life that she wanted. He wanted them to live a fun life together. And when he became a father everything changed for him. She never understood how he felt about their children and family. How could she. She never really connected to any of the children except maybe their daughter together, Bonnie, and only because she watched how Rhett behaved with her. She might have finally awakened to the fact that Rhett loves her. She thinks she loves him, although I doubt she is capable of loving anyone. Even if she could reignite their passion, could she, after all the years that have passed, repair her broken or non-existent relationships with him and her children? Would she be able to put aside her vanity and have another child with Rhett? Would he be able to put aside his years and years of pain to allow himself to love her again? My bet is no.

Scarlett's best costume, from MovieActors.com

Rhett Butler: My darling, you're such a child. You think that by saying, "I'm sorry," all the past can be corrected. Here, take my handkerchief. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief. [Film]

I think that Scarlett's famous procrastination shows that she is still as stubborn and clueless as ever. She shares that quality with Emma Woodhouse and her modern counterpart Cher Horowitz.

I'll think of it tomorrow, at Tara. I can stand it then. Tomorrow, I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day. [Book]

Scarlett: Tara! Home. I'll go home. And I'll think of some way to get him back. After all ... tomorrow is another day. [Film] 

I'm not trying to rob Scarlett of her triumph. She will never be beaten down. She was sixteen at the start of the story and is only thirty-two as it ends. But for once in her life, she has to take "No" for an answer. She does need to go back to Tara. And reconcile with her sister. And get to know her surviving children. She needs to grow up. She has proved that she can take on the world and then some. She needs to stop grabbing and start living.

Quotes: Goodreads and imdb.

Book #3 in reading challenge Cannonball Read 3, sponsored by Pajiba