Gone with the Wind

“Gone with the Wind,” by Margaret Mitchell, she of Atlanta, Georgia, newspaperwoman extraordinaire, is seemingly the longest book ever written at 1,037 pages.

It was only a few weeks ago that I even thought about reading this tome, published in 1936, this tale of life in the South before emancipation, in days of hoop skirts and chivalry and racism and war and glory and disasters.

Not too many years ago, I visited her apartment, aka museum, in downtown Atlanta, where she wrote “Gone with the Wind.” Not the most spacious abode, her apartment still houses her black manual typewriter, which sits at the foot of her bed, a testament to Mitchell’s determination, innovation and endurance.

The popularity of her book prompted David O. Selznick to join with George Cukor and put this tantalizing tale on film.

The movie was what we call a blockbuster.

Mama and I went to see it at the Lucas Theatre on Abercorn Street in Savannah.

I really don’t think I have ever seen another film as impressive as “Gone with the Wind.” Just remembering Scarlett standing in a field, raising her fist and declaring she would never go hungry again; Rhett saying, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”; the burning of Atlanta; and so many scenes from this epic written by a mild-mannered journalist with an extraordinary imagination who laboriously typed page after page in her modest bedroom.

Our Second Tuesday Book Club has 12 members, one for each month of the year, and I have chosen “Gone with the Wind.”
It wouldn’t hurt to see the movie again to refresh my memory.

I was an early reader. As soon as I figured out what all those squiggles were, I became a reader.

Not for me all those baby books in the children’s room at what we called “The Big Library” on Bull Street in Savannah, where I was born and raised.

This esteemed and grand building, all white stone and two-story-tall Ionic pillars, had a room especially for children’s books, a really big room with really big windows, a bright and shining room with little tables and little chairs for little people like me.

But at age 10, when I became the proud owner of my very own library card, I wasn’t interested in what the children’s room had to offer.

Early on, Santa paid heed to my request and brought me an entire set of the Betty Lee books. I devoured pages describing her escapades.

One Christmas, I received two large books that held my very most favorite stories.

One was “Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen,” featuring stories such as “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Snow Queen” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The other held stories from the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who gave us “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” and “Hansel and Gretel”

These talented men made my young life sweeter with their stories.

My most favorite reading place on those hot summer days, when school was out and before we had a vacation cottage in Bluffton, was the sun parlor of our house on 52nd Street. With windows all around and a comfortable studio couch, it was an idyllic lounge for me and whatever book took my fancy.

For years, as a preteen, I would take the Parkside bus downtown once a week on Saturday mornings to Silva’s bookshop on Whitaker Street, buy a Bobbsey Twins book for $1.25 and try to keep up with their antics.

Betty Rollinson was an avid reader like me, and we would swap our Bobbsey Twins books.

Mama’s “True Confessions” and “Modern Romance” magazines were interesting to an 11-year-old; movie magazines, too, with tales of actors in that faraway Hollywood, California.

Honoré de Balzac and Guy de Maupassant, two volumes tucked away on the bottom shelf of the living room bookcase, provided the best short stories ever.

So, getting back to “Gone with the Wind,” the book. At long last, from beginning to end, I will read it.

Annelore Harrell’s journey is a tapestry woven with fascinating experiences.