Molly Haskell’s Frankly My Dear (Yale), is not specifically about the writing of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind, nor is it about the making of David O. Selznick’s film version, although it touches upon both creations.

It is, rather, an inquiry into the enduring strength of both book and movie, and a strong, articulate claim for the worthiness of both of those quite different works — the way they seized the imagination of a romance-prone world, each in their own way, and have never really let go.

It’s a searching analysis of an enduring phenomenon, written from the point of view of a southern woman, and one of the best books about pop culture I’ve read in years, because Haskell realizes that both the book and film are unusually vibrant and living works; because of their very strong political, sexual and racial components, both the book and the film, not to mention our responses to them, shift back and forth depending on the times in which you read the book and saw the movie, or re-read the book and re-see the movie. A fine book.

In the Pipeline…

David Hajdu, author of excellent books on Billy Strayhorn and the government’s prosecution of comic books in the 1950s, will publish an essay collection through Da Capo.

Heroes and Villains will include pieces on movies, comics and music, with topics ranging from Woody Guthrie, Elvis Costello, Joni Mitchell and Kanye West.

Mike Browning’s Word of the Week…

masdeu: a red wine from southern France.

Quote Unquote …
“Literature is a splendid mistress, but a bad wife.” — Rudyard Kipling