Finally finished a book!

One of my 2006 resolutions was to read more books that are harder to read than my boys'. I've enjoyed a few really great spring days out on the deck and even actually finished reading a book! The first in forever, it seems. No, not Dr. Zhivago... that is going REALLY SLOW for me. I just finished Lost Laysen by Margaret Mitchell. That's right, the same author who wrote Gone With The Wind (which I have yet to start reading!). To be honest, though, Lost Laysen is a pretty thin work.

Let me backtrack a bit here. I LOVE the Gone With The Wind movie. Vivian Lee is just the epitome of southern belle and living in the south as I do, and being a female... well, there is something about grand homes and fancy dresses and drama and love stories that I just adore! Ms. Lee's portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara has got to be the very first real DIVA on the big screen. That being said, it's a really thick book and the type print is rather on the small side. ;) I have been looking for it at our newly build county library, and every week I've gone, the books (all 5 copies) have been checked out! (It's either very popular or we have some slow readers in my county! LOL!) No doubt, I will end up buying a copy of my own. I thought it would be "standard issue" when we bought the house here in Georgia or applied for our driver's licenses.

Now back to Lost Laysen.

It was actually a lost manuscript! Apparently, as the forward tells, Ms. Mitchell wrote this story in 2 composition books the summer of her 16th year. It's a bit racey in thought for a 16-year-old, if you ask me; I'm a mom now and perhaps that's why I'm so disturbed by it. And I don't believe it to be a great work of art, either. To me, the letters and photographs in the forward were much more interesting than the fiction she wrote.

The letters and composition books were sold to the Gone With The Wind Museum in Atlanta, Georgia by Mr. Henry Love Angel, Jr. Mr. Angel's father was a beau of Ms. Mitchell, unknown to all but a few close friends. The letters and composition books written by Ms. Mitchell were a secret until Mr. Angel Jr. brought them to the museum. Just by reading the letters and seeing the pictures of them together, however, it makes me think that there was a great love - or at the very least a very strong friendship - between Angel and Mitchell.

In my opinion, their story would have made a better one than Lost Laysen. Still, it is very interesting to know that there is finally more than just one story published by Margaret Mitchell. Hopefully, I'll eventually get to read the great one.