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Loading... The Wind Done Gone: A Novel (original 2001; edition 2002)by Alice Randall (Author)
Work InformationThe Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall (2001)
  
No current Talk conversations about this book.  MsTera | Oct 10, 2023 |    ) Whitecat82 | Feb 16, 2022 | I loved it. I loved Gone with the Wind, both the movie and the book. I thought it one of the most romantic movies of all time. I still do. But I must confess I was somewhat clueness to the reality of the situation before reading The Wind Done Gone. Certainly, I nodded to the concept that there would be a different experience for black slaves, and that that is not well-addressed in Gone with the Wind. But until now, I didn't realize this as fully. The Wind Done Gone helps me to see the African-Americans of the novel as real people, and I must say even the minor white characters of The Wind Done Gone are enfleshed more fully than those of Gone With the Wind. Rhett Butler, despite his claims in Gone With the Wind, is well-known to be the only true gentleman of the novel and movie. He is the good guy, the one we root for. Scarlet O'Hara is, in contrast, quite annoying. But here, in The Wind Done Gone, we get to see that Rhett, also, is a product of the white hegemony of the South. He certainly cares for Cynara a great deal, and he treats her better than most any other whites would, even to the point of marrying her, but ultimately, she is still exotic Other to him, and not simply a wondrous human. Indeed, after years together, after marriage, he still doesn't know her name- because he never asked. Gone With the Wind is the better romance of the two, by far. It moves in that sense. The Wind Done Gone is the more realistic portrayal. And it does not have the happiness and joy of Gone With the Wind (minus the ending, of course). But let's be honest. There was more happiness and joy in antebellum South for white folks than there was for black folks. And thus I am glad to know this world better, thanks to this novel. (  ) Carosaari | Jul 13, 2019 |  ) SMBrick | Feb 25, 2018 | It overflows with digressions, underdeveloped characters, and none that were compelling or intriguing. ( ) m.belljackson | Oct 10, 2017 | no reviews | add a review
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In a brilliant rejoinder and an inspired act of literary invention, Alice Randall explodes the world created in Margaret Mitchell's famous 1936 novel, the work that more than any other has defined our image of the antebellum South. Imagine simply that the black characters peopling that world were completely different, not egregious, one-dimensional stereotypes but fully alive, complex human beings. And then imagine, quite plausibly, that at the center of this world moves an illegitimate mulatto woman, and that this woman, Cynara, Cinnamon, or Cindy, beautiful and brown, gets to tell her story. Cindy is born into a world in which she is unacknowledged by her plantation-owning father and passed over by her mother in favor of her white charges. Sold off like so much used furniture, she eventually makes her way back to Atlanta to take up with a prominent white businessman, only to leave him for an aspiring politician of her own color. Moving from the Deep South to the exhilarating freedom of Reconstruction Washington, with its thriving black citizenry of statesmen, professionals, and strivers of every persuasion, Cindy experiences firsthand the promise of the new era at its dizzying peak, just before it begins to slip away. Alluding to events in Mitchell's novel but ingeniously and ironically transforming them, The Wind Done Gone is an exquisitely written, emotionally complex story of a strong, resourceful black woman breaking away from the damaging world of the Old South to emerge into her own, a person capable of not only receiving but giving love, as daughter, lover, and mother. A passionate love story, a wrenching portrait of a tangled mother-daughter relationship, and a book that gives a voice to those history has silenced, The Wind Done Gone is an elegant literary achievement of significant political force and a novel whose time has finally come. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3)
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5
Being a fan of GWTW I am always anxious to read other books that relate to the original. This was so unique because of the perspective. The author used a diary format which I wasn't very fond. I wanted to know more about the characters. I wished for a richer description and narrative. The ending seemed rushed and anticlimatic.
If you're into GWTW you should read it but it doesn't compare and should be read on it's on merits and not as a comparison. (