Charles Portis: True Grit, Norwood, Dog of the South, Gringos, and more

[Extollager]

This living author (born 1933) was my personal "discovery of the year" not long ago. In general "humorous books" is a category I avoid. But Portis was delightful. I'd say: start with Norwood or True Grit.* I'd happily start rereading one or the other of these right now if I didn't have so many other things on hand to read and reread.

Norwood is a road trip novel. In Portis's collection Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany you can read a delightful account of a drive to Baja California.

Here's The Believer on our author:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200303/?read=article_park

And the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/books/20portis.html?_r=0

Here's an unofficial Portis site:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~wvest/

*I doubt any movie is as good as the book.

 

[Extollager]

Here are appreciations of the late Mr. Portis. "As Henri Bergson taught us, the pleasure of characters who want the world to run like a clock is watching those characters learn that it never does."

THE MAN WITH THE KEYS

WRITERS REFLECT ON CHARLES PORTIS’S LIFE AND LEGACY The announcement of the death of Charles …

www.oxfordamerican.org

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I love True Grit. The voice of Mattie Ross, the narrator, is one of the most distinct, idiosyncratic voices in fiction.*

I must admit I haven't been able to get through other of his books. I tried both The Dog of the South and Gringos. Nothing wrong with them, but they didn't really grab me enough to want to keep going. I keep meaning to try again.

*(And actually both movies do a pretty good job of capturing that voice, her character. They both stay quite true to the novel.)

 

[KiraAnn]

The only one I have read was True Grit although after the John Wayne movie. It was interesting but he - Portis- didn’t strike me as one I would keep reading.