Gone with the Wind

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Gone with the Wind

Monday, May 05, 2008, The Red Soil of Tara.

Comments by HB, in the yellow tables

What really hurt me in “Gone with the Wind” was the moment when Rhett Butler, thinking that he has acted as a brute and not as a gentleman goes to apologize to Scarlett who is happy after a night of fucking.

He apologizes because he thinks that what she wants is Ashley and he did not act like Ashley that night. He was expecting her to be angry. Scarlett and Rhett suffered from an extreme case of lack of communication. They each wanted the other to give in all the time. Rhett wanted Scarlett to say, "You aren't Ashley but..." Scarlett wanted Rhett to say, "I am in your power..." And the minute either one would have done that - the passion would have gone out like a candle. Because both Scarlett and Rhett liked the chase better than the catch.

Scarlett is not a lady, she is a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She wants to be fucked the hard way. Rhett knows it but he has also got this need of the image of the Good Civilized World of the Rich Plantage where you say “please” before entering the lady. He knows the defecating world of the brothels and he does not find in himself the wisdom to realize that both worlds are one and the same, just played on different stages.

Rhett needs this image of a Good World.

We tend to forget during the book that this goes on during the Civil War and that the Civil war is one million of dead soldiers meaning 5 millions of casualties, meaning a World full of stink and putrefaction where everybody has to try and believe in something to survive the realization that our World, the World we live in, theWorld we pretend to be civilized and well mannered, this world is made of putrefaction.

Those were exceptional years, the first time the World was experiencing mass destruction of human beings.

In a way “Gone with the Wind” is not so much a book about the Civil War, a book about Scarlett but a book about Manhood. We have two images of man, Rhett and Ashley. One is pure and dreaming, one is earthy and fucking; Yet both of them go around dreaming of the pure white lily lady that shall redeem the World, as every man has done. This dilemma was summarized in that horrible sentence:

“Even the most beautiful woman in the World is full of shit.”

In men's dream, the woman of their dreams is not full of shit. Most have great difficulties to accommodate the picture they have of the one they love with the fleshy menstruating reality she offers.

Today no man will heroically admit that he goes around dreaming of a pure white Lilly woman, but believe me, they all do. Some of the great woman consumers (Frederic Dard as San Antonio) are burning by this need to seek again and again the woman who will not be a woman of flesh and who will not stink in her mouth at wake up time.

This is why Queen Elizabeth I was able to survive in her role as a Monarch. She consciously embodied this pure white Lily for all men to admire, fight for and recieve the maternal love from her acceptance and trust. Hillary Clinton would win in a snap if she could pull off one iota of this. But she can't. She is too masculine and THAT is why she isn't trusted. Masculine women and Feminine men confuse people at a basic level. Humans like regularity, expectations met and security assured.

Rhett is a weak dreamer who does not want to face the reality of life. And yes, I know that the analysis says the contrary, that it is Ashley who is the weak one.

Rhett tries to live according an image of what man should be, a man stinking of horse and leather and a bit of sperm and gun power, while Ashley smells of aftershave. Both have in common that they evade the real true world. They live according to an image of what they should be. Ashley finds the strength act against all his instincts and becomes a terrorist, proud of having assassinated Yankees. And around him, everybody is proud of him, he is the New Saint, the New Anointed hero. While Rhett refuses the horrors of war in a brothel.

Ashley and Rhett are diametric opposites. Both want to be “men” and both do it in the way that they know best. Ashley is the quintessential “Gentleman”, Rhett is the “Scoundrel". It is good versus evil which all good stories are about - in this case what is good and what is evil are in constant flux.

Ashley goes to war because he is constantly trying to be part of the expectations of his world. Rhett initially refuses to go to war because he has rejected the expectations of the world that have rejected him. Ashley is the middle aged man, Rhett is the teenager. Scarlett is a child full of wants; feed me, clothe me, love me...

Scarlett is the only true man of this book. She is a total ruthless animal. She never yields; She never dreams. If she has to pay the price, she pays the price. Scarlett is the only true man of the story.

Scarlett is an element. It isn’t about ruthlessness – which is an active lack of caring. She is like the rain that fills the cleft in the rock and causes it to break in two when it freezes. It isn’t the fault of the rain. She is pure element.

The real hero of Gone with the Wind is The Red Earth of Tara.

Wars will pass by, winds will blow, storms will destroy, the red earth remains and keeps the memory of both the past and the future. Sorry, it is the American Pedologist that I am that is speaking, if there is something I can really understand with my guts, it is the Red Earth of Tara.

The Red Earth of Tara is in my blood as I am an African. It runs in my arteries. During the ten years we lived in Lusaka, ten miles from the City, one mile from the Shanty town, we planted all around our Government House hundreds of trees.

I have thanked God the day in 1991 when I forced to evacuate Zaire and to evacuate Zaire there was only one way, which was to take a flight in Lusaka, which means that I could go and see my Government House and trees one decade later on and many of the trees were still alive. I thanked God for the grace he had given Annie and I, a double grace, the grace of being able to plant trees on our private time on the hill behind our house, the grace to see that all of this had not been a total waste.

When the Red Earth of Tara runs into your arteries, nothing is more important than Tara.

Because “…it is the only thing that lasts.”

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