Rating: 
Summary: A travesty this book is not in print!
Review: "True Grit" is a perfect example of a tremendous book whose place in our collective literary consciousness has been displaced by a rather clumsy but well-meaning Hollywood substitute. This book should be on every junior high and high school reading list. It is true feminism on the American frontier -- a woman who won't accept "her place" in a man's world because it doesn't fit her agenda. She must avenge the murder of her father.I get chills even now from the memory of reading the serialized novel in "The Saturday Evening Post." Mattie Ross's harrowing experience in the rattlesnake pit was the most exciting thing I had ever read. It frustrates me now that I'm spending this time writing about a book you can't even order new. Everyone deserves to experience "True Grit." Just between you and me, what has diminished this book's reputation over time has been the residual effect of a movie that fell far short of its potential. The narrative style of the novel fits Mattie Ross's character perfectly. The precise and opinionated spinster telling the tale religiously avoids the crude employment of contractions in her sentences. Every "isn't" becomes an "is not," and every "he's" becomes a "he is." No one drops their "Gs" at the ends of words. While this sounds totally proper coming from Mattie's prim lips, someone injudiciously decided to keep this mannered speech in the screenplay. Not just in Mattie's speeches but in those of Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne), LeBouef (Glen Campbell), Lucky Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and the rest of the baddies throughout the Oklahoma Territory. The result is a series of stiltifying portrayals where the rough cobs of the plains sound like Sunday School teachers. Kim Darby's earnest performance as Mattie Ross is lost in this morass. One is left with the sense that the acting is just generally bad but the movie simply suffers from a screenwriter who just doesn't seem to know where the words are coming from. So why do I make a big deal about the movie when I'm talking about the novel? Only to make the point that you should not let any negative feelings for the film to deter you from the book. Ironically and somewhat sadly, perhaps the best hope for the future of Portis's work is that another movie version might one day be made, bringing it again before the public eye. (Are you listening, Mister Eastwood?) After all, shouldn't movie remakes be of movies that didn't quite get it right the first time? Kurosawa could have done the story justice by setting the film in Japan. So might Ang Lee. The story itself is a universal one that transcends cultures. Nonetheless, Portis's novel is a winning and articulate vision of the changing American West. It is one of the important novels in its genre -- one which does not deserve the fate of being ignored. All that aside -- it's a GREAT read!
Rating:
Summary: A travesty this book is not in print!
Review: "True Grit" is a perfect example of a tremendous book whose place in our collective literary consciousness has been displaced by a rather clumsy but well-meaning Hollywood substitute. This book should be on every junior high and high school reading list. It is true feminism on the American frontier -- a woman who won't accept "her place" in a man's world because it doesn't fit her agenda. She must avenge the murder of her father. I get chills even now from the memory of reading the serialized novel in "The Saturday Evening Post." Mattie Ross's harrowing experience in the rattlesnake pit was the most exciting thing I had ever read. It frustrates me now that I'm spending this time writing about a book you can't even order new. Everyone deserves to experience "True Grit." Just between you and me, what has diminished this book's reputation over time has been the residual effect of a movie that fell far short of its potential. The narrative style of the novel fits Mattie Ross's character perfectly. The precise and opinionated spinster telling the tale religiously avoids the crude employment of contractions in her sentences. Every "isn't" becomes an "is not," and every "he's" becomes a "he is." No one drops their "Gs" at the ends of words. While this sounds totally proper coming from Mattie's prim lips, someone injudiciously decided to keep this mannered speech in the screenplay. Not just in Mattie's speeches but in those of Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne), LeBouef (Glen Campbell), Lucky Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and the rest of the baddies throughout the Oklahoma Territory. The result is a series of stiltifying portrayals where the rough cobs of the plains sound like Sunday School teachers. Kim Darby's earnest performance as Mattie Ross is lost in this morass. One is left with the sense that the acting is just generally bad but the movie simply suffers from a screenwriter who just doesn't seem to know where the words are coming from. So why do I make a big deal about the movie when I'm talking about the novel? Only to make the point that you should not let any negative feelings for the film to deter you from the book. Ironically and somewhat sadly, perhaps the best hope for the future of Portis's work is that another movie version might one day be made, bringing it again before the public eye. (Are you listening, Mister Eastwood?) After all, shouldn't movie remakes be of movies that didn't quite get it right the first time? Kurosawa could have done the story justice by setting the film in Japan. So might Ang Lee. The story itself is a universal one that transcends cultures. Nonetheless, Portis's novel is a winning and articulate vision of the changing American West. It is one of the important novels in its genre -- one which does not deserve the fate of being ignored. All that aside -- it's a GREAT read!
Rating:
Summary: A travesty this book is not in print!
Review: "True Grit" is a perfect example of a tremendous book whose place in our collective literary consciousness has been displaced by a rather clumsy but well-meaning Hollywood substitute. This book should be on every junior high and high school reading list. It is true feminism on the American frontier -- a woman who won't accept "her place" in a man's world because it doesn't fit her agenda. She must avenge the murder of her father. I get chills even now from the memory of reading the serialized novel in "The Saturday Evening Post." Mattie Ross's harrowing experience in the rattlesnake pit was the most exciting thing I had ever read. It frustrates me now that I'm spending this time writing about a book you can't even order new. Everyone deserves to experience "True Grit." Just between you and me, what has diminished this book's reputation over time has been the residual effect of a movie that fell far short of its potential. The narrative style of the novel fits Mattie Ross's character perfectly. The precise and opinionated spinster telling the tale religiously avoids the crude employment of contractions in her sentences. Every "isn't" becomes an "is not," and every "he's" becomes a "he is." No one drops their "Gs" at the ends of words. While this sounds totally proper coming from Mattie's prim lips, someone injudiciously decided to keep this mannered speech in the screenplay. Not just in Mattie's speeches but in those of Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne), LeBouef (Glen Campbell), Lucky Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and the rest of the baddies throughout the Oklahoma Territory. The result is a series of stiltifying portrayals where the rough cobs of the plains sound like Sunday School teachers. Kim Darby's earnest performance as Mattie Ross is lost in this morass. One is left with the sense that the acting is just generally bad but the movie simply suffers from a screenwriter who just doesn't seem to know where the words are coming from. So why do I make a big deal about the movie when I'm talking about the novel? Only to make the point that you should not let any negative feelings for the film to deter you from the book. Ironically and somewhat sadly, perhaps the best hope for the future of Portis's work is that another movie version might one day be made, bringing it again before the public eye. (Are you listening, Mister Eastwood?) After all, shouldn't movie remakes be of movies that didn't quite get it right the first time? Kurosawa could have done the story justice by setting the film in Japan. So might Ang Lee. The story itself is a universal one that transcends cultures. Nonetheless, Portis's novel is a winning and articulate vision of the changing American West. It is one of the important novels in its genre -- one which does not deserve the fate of being ignored. All that aside -- it's a GREAT read!
Rating:
Summary: True Grit By Joseph Colwell
Review: (...)BR> Frank Ross has just been shot while buying ponies. Mattie Ross, daughter and her father's bookkeeper, has gone to avenge his death. It is set in the beautiful area of the Chacata Indian Territory in Arkansas. Armed with her wits, Rooster Cogburn a drunken marshal, Labauf a Texas Ranger, and her father's Colts dragoon revolver, they try to bring Tom Chaney to justice. He is the man who killed her father. They find him by trapping him and smoking him out of his hide away. Despite her resources, she still has to tackle many problems. All this and a bag of chips when you read True Grit. I chose this book to read because I have found interest in this kind of genera, a historical fiction. I thought it would be about a boring goose chase with no fighting. I was wrong. I found this book to be more than what it looks like. Despite the slow start at Mattie's house on the prairie I found this book to be one of the best I have ever read. I like Mattie's personality. She is sharp-tongued, witty, and intelligent. She is also stubborn and is driven with a purpose. I like the fact that there are solutions to the many problems they face. I recommend it to just about any one in the fifth grade and over that has a taste for adventure. So read this book, you will LOVE it!!(...)
Rating:
Summary: A vast improvement on the movie
Review: Charles Portis deserves to be better known in the world of American Literature, but not on the basis of this book. TRUE GRIT is a fine novel, but it is not nearly as strong as his comic novels, in particular the tragically out of print books THE DOG OF THE SOUTH and MASTERS OF ATLANTIS. While I do like TRUE GRIT, it is not representative of Portis's work as a whole. Despite not being his best work, this is a fine and impressive novel, with one of the most compelling Western anti-heroes to come along in quite a while in Rooster Cogburn. Equally as good is the narrative noice of Mattie Ross, who while a young girl, is not the least bit cute or sweet. She is, however, courageous and admirable, and is as fine an exemplar of "true grit" as Rooster. As is frequently the case, the book is considerably better than the movie. The film suffered from several difficulties, the two most serious being casting and location. Anyone familiar with Arkansas and Oklahoma knows that the movie had to have been filmed in Colorado or a similar Western state. The incongruence of real locale and fictional locale lends a surreal air to the film. The more serious problem in the film was casting. On the one hand, John Wayne was perfect as Rooster. It is impossible to imagine anyone else playing the role. On the other hand, Kim Darby and Glenn Campbell were utterly inappropriate, the latter because he is not an actor and the former because she was 8 or 9 years too old for the role. Mattie is a girl, not a young woman. In the novel there is an obvious though understated affectionate bonding Rooster and Mattie, and perhaps the film makers thought that this would seem perverse if an actress near Mattie's real age played the role. Two related anecdotes. My high school senior English teacher lived in an apartment in the area of Little Rock, Arkansas known as "The Heights." She claimed (and I have no reason to doubt this), that her apartment and Charles Portis's in the same complex shared a wall, and she could hear a typewriter from time to time. Since they were longtime neighbors, I like to think she heard TRUE GRIT and his other books being written. The other anecdote concerns a professor in the small, private Baptist college I attended in Arkansas. This one-eyed geography prof was reputed to be a former sheriff of Yell County Arkansas and an acquaintance of Charles Portis, and a model for Rooster Cogburn (he also later served briefly as lieutenant governor of Arkansas, when Lt. Gov. Footsie Britt briefly became governor so that Dale Bumpass could become a member of the the U.S. Senate). I don't whether there was any truth to this rumor or not; but it is a good rumor.
Rating:
Summary: true western
Review: great novel
you notice the small differences from the movie as you read it
a must
Rating: 
Summary: It Stunk like Rotten Eggs
Review: It was awful! It had no plot and minimal character development. The author was very unclear and sounded uneducated on the topic, not to mention extremely racist and bias to many opinions. As far as intrest goes, this book fits under the category of german phone books.
Rating:
Summary: Why isn't Portis incredibly famous?
Review: Taken along with Norwood and Dog of the South, True Grit makes up a career in the top 1% of the field. Why isn't Charles Portis more famous? For starters, True Grit has given us one of the most interesting narrators since LOLITA'S Humbert. The story itself is not half bad, but as presented to us, it is some of the most vivid stuff you're ever going to read. Every conversation is an adventure, and the account of the triple hanging is worthy of all praise. Read it now.
Rating:
Summary: As "Western" As They Come
Review: The Story: Rooster Cogburn is a territorial marshal hired by a young teenager, Mattie Ross, to find her father's killer, and a big-talking Texas Ranger tags along, as he is after the same man for other reasons. First Commentary: Horses, rough riding, smarmy villains, good-men-gone-wrong villains, marshals, Texas Rangers, shoot-'em-ups, and more horses: all the ingredients of a good Western are there. What else is there is strong characterizations and a blunt, slightly choppy, but starkly to-the-point writing style reminiscent of Hemingway. For fans of Western shoot-outs, the meadow passage is hard to beat. Overall, a good book. Second Commentary: This book is great for fans of the perfectly cast film, although the book's ending will surprise, and possibly disappoint, them.
Rating:
Summary: As "Western" As They Come
Review: The Story: Rooster Cogburn is a territorial marshal hired by a young teenager, Mattie Ross, to find her father's killer, and a big-talking Texas Ranger tags along, as he is after the same man for other reasons. First Commentary: Horses, rough riding, smarmy villains, good-men-gone-wrong villains, marshals, Texas Rangers, shoot-'em-ups, and more horses: all the ingredients of a good Western are there. What else is there is strong characterizations and a blunt, slightly choppy, but starkly to-the-point writing style reminiscent of Hemingway. For fans of Western shoot-outs, the meadow passage is hard to beat. Overall, a good book. Second Commentary: This book is great for fans of the perfectly cast film, although the book's ending will surprise, and possibly disappoint, them.
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