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My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I know I seem to have been giving out the five-star ratings as though they're candy lately, but in all honesty, it's because I've yet to write a review here for a book that I thought was legitimately crappy. I promise I'll manage to work a two-star or three-star book in here...eventually. Also, I've just noticed that I usually start a blog post with an explanation or an interesting personal anecdote. I don't think I noticed that before. How enlightening.
Segue!
To start off talking about this book, I've never read a western. Never. I've seen some movies, I've read little web comics. True Grit was going to be my first serious look at the genre.
Truth be told, I was actually very skeptical. I didn't know how a western novel worked. The idea of gun-slinging and hog-tying and other hyphen-hyphen things fitting together in a readable way on a tiny piece of paper was something that didn't seem able to work, at least to me. Those sorts of daring-do seemed more fitted to the silver screen, or to the computer screen, or to the hi-def screen in my living room.
Sometimes I love it when I'm wrong. And I say that in an honest, not-trying-to-be-ironic-or-anything way. Really.
I know I seem to have been giving out the five-star ratings as though they're candy lately, but in all honesty, it's because I've yet to write a review here for a book that I thought was legitimately crappy. I promise I'll manage to work a two-star or three-star book in here...eventually. Also, I've just noticed that I usually start a blog post with an explanation or an interesting personal anecdote. I don't think I noticed that before. How enlightening.
Segue!
To start off talking about this book, I've never read a western. Never. I've seen some movies, I've read little web comics. True Grit was going to be my first serious look at the genre.
Truth be told, I was actually very skeptical. I didn't know how a western novel worked. The idea of gun-slinging and hog-tying and other hyphen-hyphen things fitting together in a readable way on a tiny piece of paper was something that didn't seem able to work, at least to me. Those sorts of daring-do seemed more fitted to the silver screen, or to the computer screen, or to the hi-def screen in my living room.
Sometimes I love it when I'm wrong. And I say that in an honest, not-trying-to-be-ironic-or-anything way. Really.
Five out of five stars for the book with the Texas Ranger and the federal marshal named after poultry.
In retrospect, I feel stupid and maybe a little bit genre-rascist for not thinking that a western gunslinger could work in textual form. There was no real reason for me not to think that. True Grit was amazing. In fact, it was so good that now I'm a little scared now to go see either of the films. I've heard that the John Wayne version is wonderful and I can assume that the remake with scraggle-bearded Jeff Bridges is great as well since it was nominated for so many Oscars, but there's something in me that doesn't want to risk ruining how nice the book was.
This book kick-started my appreciation for cowboys. I've always been a cops-and-robbers kind of person, not cowboys-and-indians, so it was a bit surprising to me that I even liked this novel as much as I did. I suppose it proved again to me that no matter the genre, there's always a book that can make you second-guess your preferences. If I'd have walked up to myself a year ago and said "hey, in about 365 days or so you're going to really like the wild, wild west," my younger self probably would've been far too distracted by the fact that herself from the future was around to have a conversation to actually respond. Maybe that tangent went somewhere weird. I wasn't really monitoring it very well. My point was that a year ago, I definitely didn't think that the whole tumbleweeds and sheriff's badges thing would be of much interest to me.
Charles Portis is another one of those authors who I've heard nothing about and then, after reading something by them, wonder why that is. Sections of this book were so well-written that I had to set it down and wonder why I couldn't write dialogue, develop characters, establish settings like he did. The narration was great, witty. I found myself liking the characters you were supposed to like and disliking the characters you were supposed to dislike (though I will admit that I had a bit of sympathy buried somewhere in my heart for Chaney). Usually in any given book I read, there's one scene that really sticks out and either makes or breaks the story--True Grit has at least five that I can name off the top of my head, and they're all gold-star material.
That's not to say there isn't anything about this book I didn't like. It's just that, like many of the other books that I've given five stars, all the good stuff far outshines the bad. I could have had a problem with some of the diction, but I didn't. The gleam of the story was too distracting to let me focus on all the little nit-picky things that I might notice in a less-awesome book.
There is one thing about the novel that interested--not annoyed--me: I felt less of a connection with the main character, the narrator, than with one of the side characters. I suppose one could say that there were three main characters (Mattie, Rooster, and La Boeuf), but as a tradition, I feel like it's always assumed that the reader should feel more connected to the narrator of the story than with the characters that narrator is interacting with.
This book kick-started my appreciation for cowboys. I've always been a cops-and-robbers kind of person, not cowboys-and-indians, so it was a bit surprising to me that I even liked this novel as much as I did. I suppose it proved again to me that no matter the genre, there's always a book that can make you second-guess your preferences. If I'd have walked up to myself a year ago and said "hey, in about 365 days or so you're going to really like the wild, wild west," my younger self probably would've been far too distracted by the fact that herself from the future was around to have a conversation to actually respond. Maybe that tangent went somewhere weird. I wasn't really monitoring it very well. My point was that a year ago, I definitely didn't think that the whole tumbleweeds and sheriff's badges thing would be of much interest to me.
Charles Portis is another one of those authors who I've heard nothing about and then, after reading something by them, wonder why that is. Sections of this book were so well-written that I had to set it down and wonder why I couldn't write dialogue, develop characters, establish settings like he did. The narration was great, witty. I found myself liking the characters you were supposed to like and disliking the characters you were supposed to dislike (though I will admit that I had a bit of sympathy buried somewhere in my heart for Chaney). Usually in any given book I read, there's one scene that really sticks out and either makes or breaks the story--True Grit has at least five that I can name off the top of my head, and they're all gold-star material.
That's not to say there isn't anything about this book I didn't like. It's just that, like many of the other books that I've given five stars, all the good stuff far outshines the bad. I could have had a problem with some of the diction, but I didn't. The gleam of the story was too distracting to let me focus on all the little nit-picky things that I might notice in a less-awesome book.
There is one thing about the novel that interested--not annoyed--me: I felt less of a connection with the main character, the narrator, than with one of the side characters. I suppose one could say that there were three main characters (Mattie, Rooster, and La Boeuf), but as a tradition, I feel like it's always assumed that the reader should feel more connected to the narrator of the story than with the characters that narrator is interacting with.
Rooster Cogburn is the reason I love this book.
Mattie Ross was an awesome character. I tend to really like warrior-woman characters in novels more than the beefy guys they run around with. But, I mean, Rooster was way too cool to pass up. Scruffy, eye-patch-clad, no-mercy, big-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold federal marshal? I mean, I had kinda been exposed already to the pictures of Jeff Bridges as Rooster from previews and commercials advertising the movie that I'd seen floating around the media. But for once, I didn't mind much. I probably wouldn't have imagined the marshal very differently.
Mr. Bridges has to know that he played the coolest character in the story. Yup. I am totally convinced that he knows this.
I suppose all I can do is hope that he acts as genuinely like Rooster as he looks.
I guess I've got nothing more to say about it.
True Grit kicked my thought that the old west didn't work in books. It kicked that thought in the face. Hard. True, it was more drama than action, it was more fetch-quest than take-ten-steps-and-draw, but I don't think I would have liked it any other way. It was nice to see the naturally nitty-gritty genre put in a more serious light than I felt the bandit-chase, cliche cowboy stories ever did.
This book. Go read it.
Seriously. I can't think of any reason not to reccommend it to people. Unless westerns really aren't your cup of tea. But I mean, really. Even then I'd try it out.
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