Margaret Mitchell’s novel «Gone with the Wind» is a novel with a difficult history of creation, a mixture of literary genres and worldwide fame. The creation of the novel began in 1926 with the writing of the last chapter and the main — the final phrase of the entire work: «She could not understand either of the two men whom she loved, and now she has lost both.» Then hours of work on the book, at the spider-legged needlework table, followed by hours spent in the library. Mitchell wrote, working on one or the other chapters, without reference to their sequence in the novel. When she finished her chapter, she would place it in a huge envelope made of heavy manila paper and stack the envelopes on top of each other on the floor by her desk. So gradually, a pile of pages printed by Margaret formed in the living room. At the end of 1927, the stack of envelopes grew almost into a table in height, and by the end of 1928, a guest of the house could sit quite comfortably on the pile of envelopes, as if on a couch. Subsequently, Margaret Mitchell admitted in one of her letters to the writer S. Young that she rewrote each chapter of her novel ten to twelve times, after which she put it off for a month in order to look at what she had written with a fresh look and once again correct what seemed unsuccessful. “I strove for maximum simplicity,” she wrote, “simplicity of expressing thoughts, simplicity of composition and style”.
Gradually, most of Mitchell’s acquaintances began to regard her work on the novel as a sweet eccentricity. Only a few relatives and friends, knowing the sharpness and clarity of Margaret’s mind and, remembering the 139 essays and 45 notes published by her in just three years of work in the Atlanta Journal Magazine, believed that she was capable of something outstanding.
By the end of 1929, according to Mitchell’s own statement, «the book was largely completed.» However, «mostly» meant that the book still lacked the first chapter, and the rest of the chapters were in an unsatisfactory state, sometimes consisting in the presence of two or three versions of the development of events. It will take three more years for the novel to be seen in the editorial office of the Macmillan publishing company. In the same place, in the publishing house, the name for the main character was found. But …! But, only in December 1935, Margaret Mitchell put an end to the final — sixtieth (60th !!!) edition of the first chapter of the novel and decided on the final title of her work. She went through many options. Among them were — «The Novel of the Old South!» novel, «Not in our Stars», «Tomorrow and Tomorrow». And, finally, leafing through a collection of poetry, Mitchell came across a poem by Horace arranged by Ernst Dawson, one of the lines of which, as it seemed to her, could best reflect the content of her book: “I have forgotten much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng ”(“ I forgot a lot, Sinara! Gone with the wind, the scent of these roses was lost in the crowd. ”). The phrase «gone with the wind» — «Gone with the wind» sounded great on a phonetic level, and was remembered due to its imagery. In this phrase, which became the title of the novel, there was a breath of wind, the rustle of fallen leaves blown by the wind along the ground, and all these images created a feeling of longing, a feeling of bitter and inevitable loss without which no forward movement is possible.
The story of a beautiful southerner woman who fights for personal happiness and well-being in the face of the death of the world that raised and educated her captured the Americans. Mitchell’s novel fell on fertile soil — for readers who survived the economic crisis and depression. In the first year after the release of the novel, 1,176,000 copies were sold. In 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Literature for Gone With the Wind. In 1939, David O. Selznick’s Gone With the Wind premiered in Atlanta. In Russia, the novel by Margaret Mitchell appeared in the late 1980s. For most of our fellow citizens, whose acquaintance with the novel has already taken place, it was the film, and not the printed or audiobook of the novel «Gone with the Wind» that opened the author. It was the film and the magnificent galaxy of actors involved in it that became the personification of the book by Margaret Mitchell. It is unlikely that those who watched the movie know that Mitchell refused to work on the script for the film and to participate in the selection of actors. Few people know that the script was written and rewritten by many people before it fell into the hands of Sydney Howard. But, the mention of the movie is necessary in order to confidently say that everyone familiar with the film can only in the most distant extent consider themselves familiar with the work of Mitchell and her novel «Gone with the Wind»! But all of them and those who have not watched the movie and have not yet read the novel by Margaret Mitchell now have an excellent opportunity to hear five hundred thousand words (!!!), written by an American housewife from Atlanta and read by People’s Artist of Russia Alexander Klyukvin.
Soyuz Publishing House and Pokidyshev & Sons Publishing House present an audiobook based on the novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Gone with the Wind is one of the finest examples of American prose, faithfully and accurately reflecting the events of the Civil War of 1861-1865 and the period of Reconstruction in the United States. In the center of the novel is the captivating female image of the main character — Scarlett O’Hara. A green-eyed beauty with Irish roots, capricious and capricious, but at the same time strong and desperate, ready to find a way out of any situation, not broken neither by love failures, nor by the death of parents, nor by the horrors of war. Mitchell endowed her heroine with a very interesting and mysterious character: decisive, violent and unpredictable. Scarlett was born into a prosperous aristocratic family of the planter Gerald O’Hara. She grew up in luxury and bliss in the slave-owning South of America, on the estate of her Irish father Tara, surrounded by the care and love of her parents, the jealousy and envy of her sisters, the love and hope of the quivering glances of all the male offspring of the neighborhood. It is quite natural that Scarlett has become a proud and wayward person. On the eve of the war with the democratic states of the North, at the neighbors’ ball at the 12 Oaks estate, Scarlett realizes that she is irrevocably in love with the son of the owner of the house — Ashley Wilks. She made the first mistake in her life, made by too many girls at her age, took her longing to love for true love! However, her chosen one did not share her feelings, did not succumb to her charms. Why? Scarlett is perplexed. What is the reason that she did not get what she wanted? Ashley Wilks already has a chosen one. But why isn’t she, Scarlett becomes Ashley’s wife? War, love, betrayal and a minimum of description of battle scenes, with a vivid narrative realism, characteristic of the best examples of historical prose, but with signs of an adventure novel, socio-psychological prose, melodrama and epic, that’s what awaits the listener. The story of the main character will fascinate the listener with her restless, unbridled energy, passionate love for life in all its manifestations. Her uncertain steps, mistakes, losses and gains, falls and ups, love and hatred, wealth and poverty, material and spiritual, will not leave anyone indifferent.
Cooperative publishing society
Performed by: Alexander Klyukvin
Cooperative publishing society
© translation by T. Ozerskaya (heirs); T. Kudryavtseva (heirs)
© & ℗ SP Vorobiev V.A.
© & ℗ ID SOYUZ
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