I have a thing for book stores. I tend to seek them out where ever I go. Not the giant chain bookstores but the ones with stacks of books everywhere you look, second hand and old kinda book store. While on our walk we found one, and I drug the hubs inside to see if I could find anything that just needed to be in my collection.
I looked up and there it was, a beautiful old copy of Gone With the Wind. For only $5.00. That's it. Five stinkin' dollars. I wish I knew how old the copy is exactly. The pages are so thin and delicate and it just has that wonderful old book smell. For me, it was 689 pages of amazing writing, so much so that I felt like I was right there at the wonderful parties on the plantations or on Peach Street in Atlanta during the thick of the Civil War.
I couldn't put it down that summer. It went with me everywhere...to work, to the beach, the pool, shopping. It went anywhere that I thought I might have just a minute of downtime to read a few pages.
I remember finally finishing the book and being so distraught at the ending. It wasn't happy and perfect I wanted it to be. It was real. It was harsh. It proved that life isn't a fairytale. Horrible things happen, people aren't always meant to be together and sometimes things just aren't going to work out for the better no matter how hard you try.
Life isn't all about the débutante ball. It's real. Sometimes it's perfect and picturesque, but most of the time it's gritty, stressful and ugly. And it's crazy how I had to read through the entire book thinking I was escaping my stressful and gritty life to figure out that I was just placing myself in Scarlett's shoes and becoming her.
2 comments:
I.love.that.book.
Just read it for the first time last summer. So great. Can't wait to read it again.
Wow, you know, I never thought about how reading that book as a piece of escapism puts you right in Scarlett's place, but it does.
Very deep.
Also, very good book. love it.
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