This rant is dedicated to George who witnessed one of the most traumatic events of my life. George you brought normalcy in a time of chaos and comfort in a time of distress.
I have been accompanied on most of my life adventures by one of the truest and most loyal of friends.
I’m talking about books.
When I saw the Palace of Versailles for the first time and gawked so deep I almost broke my jaw, my hand held Americans in Paris by David McCullough, ready to go at any moment.
When my family decided to road trip for 3 months across the United States, my portable car window bookshelf filled with The Metamorphosis by Kafka, Song of Years by Bess Streeter Aldrich, and China’s Long March by Jean Fritz, came with me to Gettysburg, Mt Vernon, and Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace.
When I finally got to see the Trinity College Library in Dublin Ireland which had been gathering dust on my Pinterest board for more than 8 years, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson sat in my backpack just in case there weren’t enough books at the library.
I’ve felt all the feelings with books. Disgust, tenderness, sorrow, love, fear, surprise.
I thought I had felt the whole spectrum of human emotion through reading.
There are very few books I read that I don’t like at all in any way…. And… In my pretty decently longish life of reading, I’ve never truly hated, despised, and abhorred a book with all the emotion I am capable of.
WEEEELLLLLL
Never. Say. Never.
I recently had an interaction with a book that was…
Traumatic
Devastating
Confusing
Psychologically disturbing.
Murderey
Horrifying
Inhumane
Sinister
Distressing
Creepy
Ok, we all know that I’m on thesuaruas.com at this point so I’ll stop there.
You might be thinking “There is no such book that encapsulates all of these emotions!”
There is such a book… and I’m going to tell you all about it.
Because I can distinctly remember where I am when I read a significant book, I’ll tell you that I finished this book 10,000 feet in the air above the state of Nebraska. (shoutout to Nebraska for being one of the greatest states of all time.)
Let me paint a picture for you…
It’s February
I’ve been traveling for 10 hours
I had just finished a whirlwind 48 hr weekend in Florida
I’m stressing about the upcoming week and all the things I have to accomplish.
I’m also stressing about the month of February in general because I think it’s cursed.
The seat next to me is unoccupied but the seat next to the empty seat is filled by someone named George.
I discovered his name when he turned on my overhead light when he saw I was squinting.
I’ve been fasting all day and am dehydrated.
Because my story takes place in 2022 I’ve been wearing a mask for 10 hours and am inhaling barely enough oxygen to survive.
All of this is going on and is subconsciously contributing to my reading experience.
The book I’m reading is 800 pages. I started reading in December… it is now February.
Two. Whole. Months. Later.
I can count on one hand the number of books that have taken me longer than two weeks to read.
I’ve made significant headway on the flight and am approaching the end of the book.
The 2-month journey through this book has been traumatic, to say the least. I have never questioned my need to have a therapist as much as I have reading this book.
As I slowly turn the pages getting closer and closer to the inevitable end, I start to feel as though there is a 100 lb lead ball attached to my wrist that is on fire and also begging me not to turn the page.
I fight through the feeling and continue to flip the pages… one by one… only getting 2 paper cuts in the process.
I am holding a hand over my mask which is over my mouth to prevent myself from making horrible groaning/gasping/screaming noises.
Every single page is bringing, everlasting, torture.
I had already bitten off my nails earlier in the flight and am left with stubs for my fingers.
There is noise around me—shifting, moving, and readjusting—but I am deaf to the sounds of normal flight life.
I keep taking breaks from the book to postpone what I know will be a psychologically disturbing ending — but realize that watching The Good Dinosaur on George’s screen is ruining my dramatic moment, so I’m left to continue reading.
As I finally finished the last word I carefully closed the book and held it with both hands as I do with all books I finish…
Only the presence of George looking at me in an incredibly concerned way prevented me from ripping open the side of the plane and throwing the book out of one of those small airplane windows…. This is significant because I never wish to harm books ever.
I stared at the book for a few seconds… and then I looked straight ahead into the blackness of the dormant TV screen.
And then I wept.
Now for a quick differentiation of different types of crying.
Eyes Watering = Your eyes fill with liquid but nothing runs down either cheek.
Crying = A couple of tears falling down your face. The max amount of tears before turning into weeping is 15.
Sobbing = You have no control over your body because the emotion is in charge and is coming out of you whether you want it or not. Shaking, choking, and hiccuping accompany this.
Weeping = Many tears are coming out of the eyes but you are in control and it feels good to have experienced something dramatic enough to weep about.
In case you’re wondering which is the healthiest… it’s weeping.
So there I am. 10,000 feet in the air, wearing a mask, barely breathing, no fingernails, and weeping about the hopelessness of the world… all while George stared at me.
Now that I’ve painted that image for you I am ready to disclose which book turned my life into a dirty potato lying in an empty field in Rexburg Idaho.
This book is what some consider to be the American Epic:
Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
It all started at my favorite wooden table located at my school in my American History class. We were talking Civil War literature and the teacher was looking for suggestions for books to read.
I casually threw out “Gone With The Wind” because I had seen the 4-hour movie 13 years before and forgot the physical heartache, pain, and depression that I had experienced watching it.
I had also always wanted to read the book and this was the perfect opportunity.
Here’s the thing about Gone With The Wind that was significant.
I have loved many many books.
I have wept after reading many many books.
I have been physically affected by many many books.
I have even disliked some books…
But I have never in my life hated a book as much as I hated Gone With The Wind.
I hated how dehumanizing it was
I hated Scarlett’s abusive nature
I hated that Rhett lost trust in humanity
I hated the gruesome effects of the civil war
I hated that Ashley was a guy and not a girl and that he was a pathetic excuse for a man
I hated how good Melanie was to crazy people
I hated how Ellen O’Hara never got credit for any of her work
I hated that eating yams was considered normal and good in 1860s Georgia
I hated Margaret Mitchell for writing such an awful story
And the thing I hated the most about the book was how much I knew I truly loved it.
In case you’re confused by what I just did here’s a brief video that will explain everything from the 1999 classic rom/com 10 Things I Hate About You
I wasn’t stable enough to admit any of these things to myself on the airplane… or even 10 days after I got home… heck I’m almost not even capable of admitting it now.
I’m still too busy going through the five stages of grief.
Denial that I actually liked the book at all.
Anger that I actually forced myself to read that caused psychological damage for the entire month of February
Bargaining for the life I had before I knew the ending of Gone With The Wind
Depression that I was beginning to see how much the book actually meant to me
And acceptance that I actually loved the book because of how much I hated it
I loved that someone had taken the time to write a book that affected me so strongly
I loved that Scarlett’s character was so complex I couldn’t actually decide if I loved or hated her
I loved Rhett’s romantic sense of duty
I still hate Ashely and I will never like him
I also still hate yams
I loved Melanie because she chose to believe the best in people who were clearly insane
I loved Margaret Mitchell and her incredible ability to abuse human emotion through words
So… will I ever pick up Gone With The Wind again? Never in a million years or for a million dollars.
I made a vow 10,000 feet above Nebraska that I never would for the sake of my mental health.
A few days later I broke that vow because I forgot I read it for a class and we were going to have to discuss it for the next two weeks.
I also forgot how many pages made me laugh out loud which meant I had to force everyone who was close to me for the entire month of February to listen to me read from it.
What I didn’t forget was the tingle that goes down my spine, the chills that break out across my body, and the dread I feel in the pit of my stomach whenever I even come close to the last 100 pages of the book because of the horrifying disturbing hopeless yet perfect ending.
Would I recommend Gone With the Wind to every single person I know? Absofreakinlutely
I will die and my headstone will say “She encouraged everyone to read Gone With The Wind the book she hated most in the world.”
So I’m basically begging you
Read It
Interact with the full capacity of your human emotion.
That sounded like the perfect ending to a great story, didn’t it?
Well, this isn’t a story… it’s a full-on rant.
And it wouldn’t be a good rant if it didn’t go on for a little bit too long…
If you take my advice (which you absolutely should) and you have trauma from your reading experience (which you absolutely should) … then know that I understand and by the time you read this, I might have started a Gone With The Wind support group that you can join.
If you’re a romance author and you’ve never read this book… you should be fired. If you want to know how to write a real-deal romantic scene… just take a quick trip into Scarlet and Rhett’s dysfunctional, psychopathic, unhealthy, yet passionate relationship and you’ll be inspired to add a few more lip-crushing kisses and violent shakes to your overemotional female heroine.
Take my advice and watch your writing change.
If you’re confused about how it’s possible to love and hate a book so. flipping. much. read this quote from the end of Brave New World (or just read the whole novel.) John, an amazingly complex character finally breaks out of the drug-addicted dystopian society and exclaims “But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.”
It is a great gift to feel hatred and pain sometimes—because in our apathetic, numb, unfeeling, and overstimulated world, it’s a gift to experience any kind of emotion at all.
The whole point of reading the book is that you hopefully feel something.
At the very end of Gone With The Wind (the movie) Scarlett finally tells Rhett that she loves him. He replies with one of the most iconic movie lines of all time… He says “Frankly my dear… I don’t give a damn.”
It hurt me to even type that, that’s how painful the ending is to me.
Well reader I want you to know that I do give a damn…
About good books
About human goodness
About passionate romances
About studying the Civil War
About banning yams from Thanksgiving for the rest of time
And about experiencing things that help me feel the full spectrum of human emotion even if it’s painful