dear margaret mitchell

dear margaret mitchell,
where does one begin in addressing their favorite author? though you had just one book published, that was all it took for me to be fully entrenched and consumed by your incomparable wit and your resplendent prose. i will always be grateful for that day in the 6th grade that i started reading gone with the wind. my world was forever changed.
i feel i must apologize for the recent "literary works" that have been authorized by your estate. i am sorry that both fall short of your standards. neither "scarlett" and "rhett butler's people" comes within shouting distance of gone with the wind. did the authors not research enough? was there no passion for the original characters? or is there simply no way to write an adequate companion novel to the greatest written work of recent history? while i empathize with the estate's need to answer the public's pleas for answers and conclusions about gone with the wind, sometimes things need to be left well enough alone. gone with the wind is a masterpiece. too much milk on cereal just makes it soggy. too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the meal. and too many authors trying to recreate the magic of gone with the wind make poor sequels. (excepting of course the day when i finally sit down and pen my narrative of gone with the wind.)
sincerely, heidi-president of the simpson family chapter of the gone with the wind fan club.

i finished rhett butler's people on friday night. i tried to give it a chance. i wanted my mind to be a tabula rasa. it is difficult to put aside one's preconceptions on this very important subject matter and be subjective, not just critical. there were some elements i enjoyed. of course it was nice to revisit the characters and i liked some of the fresh ideas that were presented. but the smoldering relationship between rhett and scarlett was just not present. it was more like a nice meal from a restaurant reheated the next day for lunch. fine, but not like the real deal. and some of the scenarios were just impossible. they just wouldn't happen and nothing could make me believe they were feasible.

after i finished rhett butler's people, i went back and read a passage from gone with the wind, just to see if i was being too critical. no. i am an expert in these matters. rhett butlers people is a nice story, but is in no way doctrine. the end.