Rating: 
Summary: ha ha ha ha
Review: I just started this book...read during my lunch break today, and could hardly wait to get home to read it tonight. SO funny. I love outrageous characters..and these manage to be outrageous and real too. I'm only on page 52, and if this book falls flat on its face on 53...I've had a great time. ps..I'll check the "hidden treasures" more often. pps...wish all the authors permitted "1st chapter" reads. I'm buying more books lately...but also enjoying them more.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, enticing, entertaining
Review: I learned of Charles Portis in the January 1998 issue of Esquire and immediately started searching for his books. I found 1st edition copies of Dog of the South and Gringos, and paperbacks of Masters of Atlantis, Norwood, and True Grit. I've finished Norwood and Dog of the South and I believe Dog of the South is one of the best books I've read. Portis is concise, sharp, and thoughtful. You may have nothing in common with Ray Midge, but you certainly do sympathize with him by the time you are finished with the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Did I read the same book?
Review: I ordered this book based on the reviews I read, and was forced to conclude that either my copy originated from another planet, or my taste is radically different. Portis picks a milieu rich with possibilities (the pursuit of a runaway wife from the American south to Mexico and Honduras) and proceeds to imbue it with a rambling, inane collection of dialogues and reflections that are tedious and uninteresting. Though he does a reasonable job of character development, there is not a single one that drew me in, or piqued my interest in any way. Only one thing amazed me...I can't believe I finished it. I guess I kept hoping there would be some redeeming quality. That needle remains in the haystack.
Rating:
Summary: I forgot how much I liked this guy. . . . .
Review: I read NORWOOD when I was about eleven years old, and loved it, reading it once or twice a year until well into my teens, when the book either fell apart or got lost somewhere.Imagine my joy at being enfolded in Charles Portis' marvelous universe once again, where a man puts plastic bags on his junkyard dog's feet because the dog doesn't like getting his feet wet;old men in big shoes and smocks hollar outside motel rooms, and, when confronted say, "I'm just fooling around," and missionaries politely disagree over who is more destructive: human beings or goats. This book is a million laughs. Readers of NORWOOD might find some similarities between the narrator/protagonist and Norwood's brother-in-law Bill Bird.
Rating:
Summary: A truly great book- Twain meets O' Rourke!
Review: I really enjoyed this book- it is a tragic state of affairs that this is out of print. Portis is a master joker whose eye for comic detail is right on the money!
Rating:
Summary: Another Portis devotee weighs in
Review: I'm encouraged to see Portis' fans increasing--I agree totally with those who call this novel a comedic masterpiece. I teach creative writing, and never let a semester go by without reproducing (and acting out with someone in the class) an exchange between the main character and the Doc to show students how a Master creates unforgettable hummorous dialogue.
Rating:
Summary: A rare gem of a novel; beautifully crafted, wildly funny!
Review: In the spring of 1979, while on a delayed-honeymoon trip, my husband and I bought "The Dog of the South" at a New York bookstore. We were each hooked by the opening paragraphs, and for the next several days we conducted a literal tug of war over the book as we (grudgingly) took turns reading it to completion. There are not enough accolades in my vocabulary to express my love and enthusiasm for this book, which I have re-read many times in the ensuing years. Every character became utterly real to me... so much so that if I should ever visit Belize I would be tempted to look for the Unity Tabernacle and check to see how Meemaw and Melba are faring and whether they have news of Dr. Symes. We kept loaning the book to other people and periodically had to replace our copy. Then, some years ago I was horrified to discover it was no longer in print! A frantic search yielded a used copy at a Little Rock bookshop, and we've guarded it like the treaure it is. (We've since acquired other copies as we've run across them and passed some along to friends.) It is so wonderful that this marvelous little novel is being republished! I wish every reader who might appreciate it for the absolute delight it is would be fortunate enough to discover and savor it.
Rating:
Summary: A rare gem of a novel; beautifully crafted, wildly funny!
Review: In the spring of 1979, while on a delayed-honeymoon trip, my husband and I bought "The Dog of the South" at a New York bookstore. We were each hooked by the opening paragraphs, and for the next several days we conducted a literal tug of war over the book as we (grudgingly) took turns reading it to completion. There are not enough accolades in my vocabulary to express my love and enthusiasm for this book, which I have re-read many times in the ensuing years. Every character became utterly real to me... so much so that if I should ever visit Belize I would be tempted to look for the Unity Tabernacle and check to see how Meemaw and Melba are faring and whether they have news of Dr. Symes. We kept loaning the book to other people and periodically had to replace our copy. Then, some years ago I was horrified to discover it was no longer in print! A frantic search yielded a used copy at a Little Rock bookshop, and we've guarded it like the treaure it is. (We've since acquired other copies as we've run across them and passed some along to friends.) It is so wonderful that this marvelous little novel is being republished! I wish every reader who might appreciate it for the absolute delight it is would be fortunate enough to discover and savor it.
Rating:
Summary: As funny as they get.
Review: It is a tragedy that this book is out of print. The first few pages of this novel are as funny as writing can get. Those who only know Portis by TRUE GRIT would be shocked to learn that he is primarily a comic writer, and THE DOG OF THE SOUTH and MASTERS OF ATLANTIS are his funniest. The scene in which the protagonists describes how he always wets the corners of his cocktail napkins so that the napkin will stay attached to the bar rather than stick to his glass and thereby make him look like a dork is priceless.
Rating:
Summary: Let us name a child after him.
Review: It is an unnerving thing to hear the thoughts of friends and strangers regarding Charles Portis, one-time jet-set journalist, now reclusive novelist. It is unlike hearing and trading views on anyone else in letters, or for that matter, popular culture. I say it is strange: it is strange because one hears one's self speaking from out another's mouth. One's opinion -- "He is the funniest...Dog of the South is so...Who is Charles Portis, what else has he written! -- is exactly alike to one's fellow reader. Disagreement shrinks down, enthusiasm pours in; often one is left feeling embarassed, as after a mad and rhapsodic bit of truth or dare. It is odd that someone so consistently praised (high, high praise) is no more a figure of our culture's common aesthetic consciousness than is the average off-the-Main postal clerk. Of course, that may now be changing some with the reintroduction of long unprinted works of art; but does it not still teach a lesson. Charles Portis' very possible contentment and humility notwithstanding, does it not tell us that we must find and celebrate our country's true artistic greats, those with the highest ability, in any number of ways, to confound and to entertain? All of the admiration bespoken merely from having had an opportunity to find and read a Portis book -- isn't it a possible remedy toward our country's wrongheaded belief that genius is somehow elitist, inscrutable, or quite a drag? Charles Portis should be read! And his lack of popular success is telling. It says that he does his part; but as readers, listeners, we benefit!, and Americans, we do not always do ours.
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