FRANKLY, `SCARLETT' IS FINISHED; `GONE WITH WIND' SEQUEL GETS INTEREST

Tomorrow has finally come for Scarlett O'Hara. Rhett Butler is dumping her - again - only this time he'll pay her $500,000 to stay out of his life forever.

Scarlett will never go hungry again with that kind of money. But can she live without Rhett?

Thousands of die-hard fans of "Gone With the Wind," awaiting the answer to that and other questions, have already reserved copies of the book's long-awaited sequel, "Scarlett."

The book, written by Alexandra Ripley, arrives in stores Sept. 25. But local English professors say readers may be dissappointed.

Margaret Mitchell's family hired Ripley to write the sequel to "Gone With the Wind" and hopes it will help raise $1.5 million to restore the dilapidated Atlanta house in which Mitchell, who died in 1949, wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Warner Books bid almost $5 million for the publishing rights.

Rhonda Eskew, assistant manager at Waldenbooks in West Park Mall, said 150 copies of the book are scheduled to arrive in the store, but the waiting list to purchase the book is fast approaching 200.

"I don't look for any of the copies to be left to go out on the shelves," Eskew said. "And we're gettting requests for it every day. I tell them to put their name in the pot."

A second order of the book could be some time in arriving, Eskew said. "I'm afraid we will have some disappointed people next week. But I don't know that they will have any luck even in St. Louis."

She said, "`Gone with the Wind' fans have been calling for months to find out when the sequel would arrive.

"I've been overwhelmed by the interest," said Eskew. "People can't wait to read it. They are really excited. I talked to one lady who said she had to find out if they get back together or not."

Peggy Butler at Metro News Book Store said several copies have been ordered. But she wasn't sure when they would arrive. "Sometimes they let the bigger stores have the books first.

"We've had some requests. We don't usually have a lot of calls for hardbacks here, but with something like this, it's different."

Harvey Hecht, professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University, said, "I certainly understand why a reader would want a sequel. It's almost always human nature to want to know what happened next."

But he said fans over the years have developed their own ideas of how the questions are answered.

"Basically it's a no-win situation for an author, particularly when something has as big a following as this book and movie," Hecht said. "You're not going to please everyone. Some people will say `That's not the way I wanted it.'

"Obviously, no matter how well the author read the original and what she did with it as a sequel, it will not necessarily be what the reader wanted."

Even if the same author writes, there is a chance being taken, he said.

"Much of the reaction to an original is the questions and what-ifs. If the questions are answered, it takes much of the impact away," said Hecht.

"Movie sequels are notoriously watered-down versions of the originals."

Hecht said he doubts he will read the book, but he's not surprised it is ready to hit bookshelves.

"There is too much money to be made in both the sequel of the book and the movie. It was inevitable that there would be a sequel. Actually, I'm surprised it took so long."

Pearl Cleage, one of five Southern writers who recently denounced "Scarlett" based on excerpts published by Life magazine, didn't mince words.

Cleage, author of "Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman's Guide to Truth," called the sequel "one of the worst things I've ever read."

"If I got this in a writing class," she said, "I would definitely urge the person to take up another field."

Charles Hearn, professior of English and American Studies at Southeast, "I've been sort of amused by the whole thing."

Hearns said "Gone With the Wind" was "really a great, popular work from standpoint of popular literature." But he said the book wouldn't be classified as "high literature."

"I wouldn't put it in the same class as `The Scarlet Letter' or `The Great Gatsby,'" he said.

He added, "I don't feel a sense of sacredness about the classics that we shouldn't tamper with thing. But this whole thing is pretty commercially oriented. That's what bothers me. Some publisher decided there was a chance to make piles of money and it becomes like a hack job.

"I do think it's a shame," Hearn said. "I wouldn't have minded a really serious, maybe even artistic, sequel. But it boils down to the fact that this all seems overly commercialized."

(Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.)