fourth new thing...

Gosh. I think the new thing for one of my weeks coming up should be i caught up on blogging my 52 new things. but, alas, i am still dreadfully behind. let's try and put a dent in it, shall we? so, as i said at the beginning of this journey, some of the 52 new things that i do will take longer than a week to plan. and the seed for this week's foray into the new was planted way back in december. i decided for christmas this year that i wanted to do something to spend more time with my mother. we (read: i) are not big phone people (read: i have no idea why i have a cell phone) and so i thought something to "facilitate" communication would be appropriate. i must admit i spent the majority of my life keeping people at arm's length and then fretting about why i was so alone. apparently i just succeed really well at all my subconscious pursuits. god i miss shelly. but enough psychobabble, this week i brought to fruition my christmas wish, i started a book club with my mom.

i coyly asked my mom in early december what her favorite book was and she answered, completely unaware of my plan, gone with the wind. now, i knew this was amongst my mother's favorite movies, along with romancing the stone ("that was the end of grogan...the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog and stole my bible"), jewel of the nile, and north and south (god, i should have know i was gay in 1985...i mean, seriously, lesley-anne down? M,MoG.), but i had no idea it was her favorite book. being a georgia peach myself, i have heard about margaret mitchell my whole life. i mean, she is sort of the unofficial first lady of the south. but i had never read the book. so i ordered them from amazon. i mean, how bad could it be, right?

ok. do you see how thick this book is? i mean, the last time i read something this long was in high school (i do love me some joseph heller). 959 pages? really mom? if we were going for sheer weight, i would have gone with the history of art. but i got myself into this mess, i suppose i must soldier on.

actually, i found ms. mitchell's prose enthralling. her use of color is amazing. seriously. it seems like every time she describes the scenery of north georgia it is saturated in reds and yellows and greens and blues. the book seems to be flying by. so kudos mom, i get it.

but ms. mitchell had even more up her sleeve than just imagery producing words ala mr. james fenimore cooper. in just the first part of this book, i learned many things about gone with the wind and-- in particular-- miss scarlett o'hara that i never knew from watching the movie. what follows is the top five. read. be enlightened. enjoy.

5 things i didn't know about gone with the wind

1. scarlett o'hara was the original regina george from mean girls. first of all, she was only 16 when the book (and the movie) starts and she is so hung up on this boy (ashley wilkes)-- who was never really hers-- that she decides to ruin lives. the quintessential bitch. honestly, i think there is a little bit of scarlett in every mean-spirited character in modern cinema, including regina and the other plastics from mean girls, winona ryder's arch nemesis from heathers, and the "a" group from never been kissed.
2. hell hath no fury like a child scorned. in retaliation for ashley getting engaged to melanie hamilton-- his cousin (insert southern joke here), scarlett marries a poor lovelorn man whom she cares nothing about, makes him feel inferior for the two months they are together before he leaves to fight for the south in the civil war, bears his child-- whom she foists off on her slaves-- and then bitches and moans about having to act like a widow after he is killed in battle. what a self-centered little tart! frankly, i don't think i would give a damn either, rhett.
3. twenty years ain't a thing when it comes to picking your bride to be. scarlett's mother was only 15 when she left savannah with scarlett's father, a man she barely knew. as a role model for the future actions of her unborn daughter, ellen roubillard left everything she knew to punish her family for running off the man she truly wanted to marry and moved to fayetteville with gerald o'hara, a 43 year old man of no family and swindled property. so spitefulness seems to run in the family. hell, it practically gallops.
4. pink may be the new black, but violet will always be the new green. scarlett o'hara is described in the opening line of the book as "not beautiful", but having alabaster skin, thick black eyebrows (and black hair i would assume) and eyes that were "pale green without a touch of hazel". now, vivien leigh, who played scarlett in the classic 1936 film version of gone with the wind was known for her violet eyes, that would change from blue to green depending on the scenery, costuming or lens used for filming. vivien leigh was hot and most likely entirely too pretty to play scarlett as mitchell imagined her. who knew?
5. schoolin' ain't needed. as still holds true in much of the south, education was frowned upon in mitchell's north georgia, often presented as a cause for concern as to a gentleman's place in society. while scarlett claimed to love ashley, mr. o'hara never really cared for the boy because he liked books and opera and traveling. all things a good man need not do. scarlett o'hara did attend fayetteville female academy, an only slightly fictionalized institution based on the seminary attended by margaret mitchell's grandmother. but only to teach her how to be a good wife. and apparently she skipped the core classes of the day: how to be demure, the importance of obeying your husband, and how to be agreeable.

hopefully, this new thing will continue. at least for 800 more pages. i enjoy having something to talk to mom about, other than politics and my sister. then mom and i are on to my favorite book. i can't decide if i will make her read the scarlet letter, letters to a young poet or the odyssey. but i can guarantee one thing, it won't be 959 pages long.

*update* per my mother: charles, scarlett o'hara's husband, did not die in battle. he got sick while in south carolina waiting to join the fray. quote from page 142 paragraph 6 (thanks mom): "the unfortunate boy had been cheated not only of the love he thought he had won but also of his high hopes of honor and glory on the field of battle." ever the teacher.

*update part deux* per my cinemaphile friend mcpeak: gone with the wind was released as a major motion picture in 1939 not 1936. which i actually knew, but, alas, my dyslexia overtook my intellect and made me look foolish yet again. is it still dyslexia if you flip numbers instead of transposing them? my apologies. but, if you visit the link provided, it lists "the beginning" of the motion picture as 1936, not 1939. see, i can always find a technicality.