Hmmmm.  So, whoever is in charge of the marketing for the new GWTW book, Rhett Butler’s People, have decided to go for the jugular of the young masses and create a myspace.  Starring Rhett Butler.  And seemingly making a mockery of my favorite literary hero in the history of literary heroes.  I took a look, added it as a friend, then took a closer look and, well, me no likey, seriously.

The blogs are really strange, making a joke out of something or other and turning one of the most famous love stories into a high school parody.  Is this solely for the purpose of attracting 14 year old fans or something?

This strange myspace occurrence coincides with selected passages of the new novel which can be found online.  As a serious GWTW fan, I’m disappointed at what I’ve read.  Where is Margaret Mitchell’s beautiful imagery?  Why was Rhett’s middle name changed to something even more ridiculous (Kernshaw…huh?)?  And why are we not getting more detail of what he was feeling in his relationship with Scarlett?  In GWTW, we got  a glimpse of how Scarlett thought (she didn’t think much, but when she did, it was written out in length).  This prose seems choppy, abrupt, and  the dialogue sounds like it came straight out of the film.

I will “Get Rhett” on November 6th, but I really hope all of this is not a foreshadowing of that work as a whole.

http://www.myspace.com/rhettbutlerspeople

read segments of the book at http://www.rhettbutlerspeople.com and http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?cat=rhettexcerpt

I’d love to  hear your thoughts on these recent developments.