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Rhett Butler's People
Oct. 30th, 2009 03:54 pmI just finished reading Rhett Butler's People, an authorized (by the Mitchell estate) sequel to Gone with the Wind. Mercifully it completely ignores that dreadful other sequel, Scarlett, about which the less said, the better. RBP got better reviews than Scarlett (which were uniformly bad) but they were still mixed--I actually think it's quite good. It starts 12 years before the War, when Rhett is still a young man, continues through his meeting Scarlett and his courtship of and marriage with her, and ends I guess about 5 years after GWTW ends. The author's name is Donald McCaig and he damn well knows how to write about war (he wrote a very well received novel about the War called Jacob's Ladder) and the Low Country (Rhett is from the Charleston area). There are some really specific, descriptive, lyrical descriptions of Rhett's plantation youth.
Although the frame of the piece is GWTW from Rhett's point of view, like GWTW, the narrative shifts to other characters from time to time. Sometimes the action is from Belle Watling's POV, sometimes Rhett's sister Rosemary, sometimes Melanie or Ashley, and even from Scarlett's (interesting, because GWTW never had a section seen through Rhett's eyes). The book also introduces new characters, like Rhett's boyhood friend Andrew Ravenal (an old Charleston name, as is Rhett--I mean, in reality, like Tradd and Proileaux) and another one, Julian Fisher. With both of these characters, the author sketches out--how do I put this--he hints at things that we know about and talk about today, but back then they were only very, very faintly acknowledged, if at all. For example Andrew is described several times as melancholy--a "darkness" will descend upon him and Julian keeps him company. At one point the narrative takes place as he's experiencing this and you realize--oh, he's a depressive. Also, as everyone else is paring off and getting married, you're trying to keep track of the characters and eventually you realize--Julian isn't married. Julian hasn't courted anyone. The light dawns!--and it's more or less confirmed when Andrews calls him a "nancy boy" at one point. I like that, I like an historical novel that acknowledges these seemingly modern concerts without hitting you over the head anachronistically with them. Probably all of Julian's friends, after a point, understood Julian was "that way" or at the very least just knew he would never get married. The book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the same way--nobody ever talks about it, but everyone understands what the two main characters are to each other.
The author's facility with character scenes is not as good as Margaret Mitchell's (who was a stunningly fluent writer with all different kinds of scenes--conversational, descriptive, dramatic). Sometimes he writes like a better version of Erich Segal where every brief conversation ends in some kind of bon mot or point or declamatory flourish. And I don't think he quite gets some of the characters--I'm not sure he really has a handle on Melanie exactly, although her memories of her childhood with her brother Charles (Scarlett's first husband) are quite endearing and actually make him much more interesting as a character. But back to the females--I'm not sure he really gets Scarlett either, at least post-GWTW Scarlett. It's difficult because as much as she changes throughout GWTW, she only has the Great Epiphany at the very end, so it's hard to know how to write a Scarlett who really does love Rhett and knows it. And there is an AWFUL lot of melodrama toward the end.
But as I said, the reviews are mixed. One criticism that puzzles me is that some say that the book deconstructs Rhett too much, makes him less mysterious, that supposedly he was a mystery, a cipher and that's why he was so interesting. I'm not sure I see Rhett as all that mysterious--he talks an AWFUL lot. If you've never read the novel but have only seen the movie, let me tell you, Rhett is a talker. He's always going on carriage rides with Scarlett where he's talking about history or the War or philosophy or social mores or something--pages worth. He's worse than Rosalind. I mean, no, he never bares his heart but he ain't no Sphinx. His appeal is more animal than that--it's not because he's a mystery, it's because he's a badass.
Oh, and since reading the book, I've been dying to re-read (for the hundredth time) GWTW--and I found it online!
Although the frame of the piece is GWTW from Rhett's point of view, like GWTW, the narrative shifts to other characters from time to time. Sometimes the action is from Belle Watling's POV, sometimes Rhett's sister Rosemary, sometimes Melanie or Ashley, and even from Scarlett's (interesting, because GWTW never had a section seen through Rhett's eyes). The book also introduces new characters, like Rhett's boyhood friend Andrew Ravenal (an old Charleston name, as is Rhett--I mean, in reality, like Tradd and Proileaux) and another one, Julian Fisher. With both of these characters, the author sketches out--how do I put this--he hints at things that we know about and talk about today, but back then they were only very, very faintly acknowledged, if at all. For example Andrew is described several times as melancholy--a "darkness" will descend upon him and Julian keeps him company. At one point the narrative takes place as he's experiencing this and you realize--oh, he's a depressive. Also, as everyone else is paring off and getting married, you're trying to keep track of the characters and eventually you realize--Julian isn't married. Julian hasn't courted anyone. The light dawns!--and it's more or less confirmed when Andrews calls him a "nancy boy" at one point. I like that, I like an historical novel that acknowledges these seemingly modern concerts without hitting you over the head anachronistically with them. Probably all of Julian's friends, after a point, understood Julian was "that way" or at the very least just knew he would never get married. The book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the same way--nobody ever talks about it, but everyone understands what the two main characters are to each other.
The author's facility with character scenes is not as good as Margaret Mitchell's (who was a stunningly fluent writer with all different kinds of scenes--conversational, descriptive, dramatic). Sometimes he writes like a better version of Erich Segal where every brief conversation ends in some kind of bon mot or point or declamatory flourish. And I don't think he quite gets some of the characters--I'm not sure he really has a handle on Melanie exactly, although her memories of her childhood with her brother Charles (Scarlett's first husband) are quite endearing and actually make him much more interesting as a character. But back to the females--I'm not sure he really gets Scarlett either, at least post-GWTW Scarlett. It's difficult because as much as she changes throughout GWTW, she only has the Great Epiphany at the very end, so it's hard to know how to write a Scarlett who really does love Rhett and knows it. And there is an AWFUL lot of melodrama toward the end.
But as I said, the reviews are mixed. One criticism that puzzles me is that some say that the book deconstructs Rhett too much, makes him less mysterious, that supposedly he was a mystery, a cipher and that's why he was so interesting. I'm not sure I see Rhett as all that mysterious--he talks an AWFUL lot. If you've never read the novel but have only seen the movie, let me tell you, Rhett is a talker. He's always going on carriage rides with Scarlett where he's talking about history or the War or philosophy or social mores or something--pages worth. He's worse than Rosalind. I mean, no, he never bares his heart but he ain't no Sphinx. His appeal is more animal than that--it's not because he's a mystery, it's because he's a badass.
Oh, and since reading the book, I've been dying to re-read (for the hundredth time) GWTW--and I found it online!
