True Grit

I picked up Charles Portis' True Grit kind of on a whim, reasoning that I was more likely to have the chance to read the book than I was to see the movie, and then something strange happened. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Sure, it's a cowboy book (not that there's anything wrong with that), and the language is strangely stilted, and I never quite got a handle on Mattie Ross our heroine, but what a great read. Fourteen year old Mattie sets off matter-of-factly to avenge her father's death, hires and then teams up with an old marshal who is not what he seems, and a Texas Ranger who is also not exactly what he seems. The book meanders a bit at first, not unpleasantly, the way you kind of picture John Wayne meandering in his role as Rooster Cogburn in the original screen adaptation. Rooster doesn't always seem like he knows what he's doing--he's a bit shifty and a drinker at that. It's never too clear whether LaBoeuf, the Ranger, can be fully trusted either, and some of the encounters the three avengers have along their quest are casual in their occurence and their violence. The book is touted by the New York Times Book Review as "a comic tour de force" which didn't make much sense at first, but I did laugh out loud several times. It's a dry sort of humor, but it's there. When a lawman meets up with the little band, he looks at LaBoeuf and asks,

"Is this the man who shot Ned's horse from under him?"

Rooster said, "Yes, this is the famous horse killer from El Paso, Texas. His idea is to put everybody on foot. He says it will limit their mischief."

LaBoeuf's fair-complected face became congested with angry blood. He said,"There was very little light and I was firing off-hand. I did not have the time to find a rest."

Captain Finch said, "There is no need to apologize for that shot. A good many more people have missed Ned than have hit him."
"I was not apologizing," said LaBoeuf. "I was only explaining the circumstances."

And right after this exchange the three men have a pissing...uh, a shooting contest, using hard little cornmeal balls as targets, much to Mattie's exasperation. She sometimes feels she's the only one with a dog in this race, but she's paying for their help so feels they should listen to her.

She gets her wish, more or less, and there's a big show down, of sorts. The action meanders still except when it suddenly doesn't and Portis leads us straight into phobia territories. What are you scared of? Snakes? Got 'em, in the form of a nest or rattlers. Bats? Yep. Being stuck in a cave? Uh-hunh? Infested skeleton keeping you close company? Check. It's all there. Everything to keep you awake at night for a week and all of it at once, just when the reader's been lulled into a little old western. It's a satisfying and entertaining read with a delicious bit of excitement, even if exacting revenge doesn't feel quite as cathartic as we all hope it to be.