Monday, July 15, 2019

A riveting read

True Grit by Charles Portis, Overlook Press, N.Y. 1968

A western novel with a difference. The blurb calls it a classic.
The protagonist is a 14 year old girl and the action is set in the 1870s. The girl's well-to-do father is murdered by a vagabond and the girl decides to track him down and avenge the murder. She leaves behind her weeping mother and two younger siblings and moves to the nearest town. She manages to enlist, with considerable difficulty, an experienced marshal who wants to undertake the commission but without her on the journey. The commission is $ 100, a vast sum and the girl is used to dealing in that kind of money! She offers only a quarter of the money first and balance later. Another Texan officer joins the party and she succeeds. But boy! what a journey!
 The girl - Mattie - has loads of common sense while also being prone to simple mistakes. The marshal is Rooster Cogburn, a memorable character.
Right from page one, sentence one, the story begins and continues. The style does not vary. It is the details - of landscape, weather, people and action - which are gripping. And smartly, in 143 pages, the story comes to a happy end. Well, Mattie loses one hand and never marries. Towards the end, it becomes clear that as an 80-year old lady, she is describing this story based on her memory.
The reader hardly expects this feminist perspective in this setting. That is a part of the attraction of this novel.
Do read it. It is almost unputdownable. I skipped some parts, did not understand some and have vowed to read it slowly, again.

1 comment:

Vasudha said...

Charles Portis, a famed journalist died on 19 February 2020. He was 89 years old.

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