Friday, March 20, 2015

Western Annotation

Simon & Schuster, 1968
Author:  Charles Portis
Title:  True Grit; A Novel
Genre:  Western
Publication Date:  1968
Number of Pages:  224
Geographical Setting:  Western Frontier, Oklahoma
Time Period:  Circa, 1880's
Original Publication:  Saturday Evening Post, 1968 

Summary
Winter. 14 year old, Mattie Ross lives with her “salt of the earth” father, Frank Ross, on the family farm. Frank has just hired a drifter named Tom Chaney in need of work & reluctantly takes him on a business trip to purchase a few ponies in Fort Smith, 70 miles away. Mattie is suspicious & worried; she recounts not being able to talk Frank out of including Tom. While her father is gone, Mattie is being looked after by a kind family friend, Yarnell.  

A few days later, Mattie learns that her father has just been murdered by Tom Chaney while trying to break up a drunken gambling fight at the Monarch Inn. To make matters worse, Chaney steals the $150.00 & 2 special family gold pieces that Frank has always kept with him - a gift given to Frank by his grandfather. Mattie is resolute & is determined to avenge her father’s murder by the low-down Chaney, she will need to step up, get some true grit & navigate the treacherous Wild West. Although, Mattie also realizes that she will have to be smarter & more composed than the evil and idiotic outlaw culture that still pervades in many of the lawless areas, which were still very present throughout the Western United States during the very pivotal 1880's.

Apparently the family attorney is away. So Mattie & Yarnell gather up & take the train to Fort Smith for funeral arrangements’, both are hopeful to get some closure on this terrible incident. For Yarnell, closure means returning to the farm after with Mattie to carry on farm life; to Mattie, closure will mean tracking down and taking out Chaney. Mattie considers this revenge to be an appropriate moment for considering the eye for an eye principle.

After the funeral, Mattie networks for information & learns that Chaney has joined the Ned Pepper Outlaw Gang. With a little more work, she meets a Federal Marshal named Rooster Cogburn, who is also after the Pepper Gang; she bribes & convinces him to help her track down Chaney & Ned Pepper – after all, they have similar goals. Quickly, they also meet a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, who is also hunting Chaney for a sizable bounty, for the murder of a senator. The 3 parties roughly travel in the same direction, with similar purposes & very different motives. Clever Mattie will have to lie occasionally & game these less than perfect lawmen into a loose friendship; she knows better than they, that they will need each other to realize each goal.


Mood, Themes & Appeal:
The story is written in the narrative voice of an elderly Mattie Ross retelling her adventure. The entire story covers her 11 day journey; well-written & funny accounts reflect a eerily clever recounting of the younger Mattie by the older Mattie, who is almost nostalgic & mostly sarcastic about the details of her terrifying adventure.

The appeal of this book, apart from the dubious drive for revenge, is the atmospheric writing about the ordinary times in between the gory murdering... Mattie, so often helps to cure the bad logic & counter-intuitive decision making of the 2 Lawmen; whether with Roosters' alcoholism or with LaBoeufs' selfish short-sightedness. Mattie picks up the pieces & will continuously re-calibrate their group after action, though they won't admit outright that Mattie is as tough as they are; and smarter too. For example, Mattie has to explain to Rooster that it is never OK to shoot rats in their boarding room, much less while people are sleeping;  Mattie explains that boozing isn't helping.

The narration of Mattie is insightful & funny. "Charles" & Mattie have a nice way of describing the beauty of the landscape in contrast to the vile, stupid, & infuriating aspects of living in a scary & ruthless time. Some of the funniest points in the story are in the conversations at the camp-fire, when getting going in the morning & when they eventually save each others' lives.


Subject Headings:
(WorldCat, 2015)

Historical Fiction
Frontier Life
Pioneer Life
Westward Expansion
United States Marshals -- Fiction
Outlaws -- Fiction
Revenge -- Fiction
Frontier and pioneer life -- Fiction
Outlaws
Revenge
Western Stories
Humorous fiction
Time: 1865 - 1898
United States -- History --1865-1898 -- Fiction
West (U.S.) -- Fiction


Similar Authors and Works:  
(Novelist, 2015)

The Sisters Brothers
Patrick Dewitt
Set in the gun-toting days of the Old West, 'The Sisters brothers' is a darkly humorous novel of revenge, adventure, justice, and avarice. -Victoria Caplinger  

The Outcasts
Kathleen Kent
These atmospheric and suspenseful historical westerns follow their unconventional, unsentimental heroines across the lawless frontier of the late 19th-century American South as they doggedly pursue their goals and elude -- or confront -- those who would stand in their way. -Gillian Speace 

Bohemian Girl
Terese Svoboda
Tough, unsentimental young heroines who live by their wits narrate these picaresque Western stories that recount evocative, dialect-rich and harrowing journeys through the 1800s American frontier.  -Gillian Speace

Coyote Summer
W. Michael Gear
Suspenseful and Descriptive, they share: the genre 'Western stories' and the subject 'The West (United States)'.

Blood Bond
William W. Johnstone
Descriptive, they share: the genre 'Western stories' and the subject 'The West (United States)'.

Hard Trail to Follow
Elmer Kelton
Descriptive, they share: the genre 'Western stories' and the subjects 'Revenge', and 'Outlaws'.

The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: v. 1: the Frontier Stories
Louis L'Amour, 1908-1988
These books share: the genre 'Western stories' and the subject 'The West (United States)'.

Hard Country
Michael McGarrity
Strong sense of place and Descriptive, they share: the genre 'Western stories' and the subject 'Outlaws'.

The Last Kind Words Saloon
Larry McMurtry
Engaging, they share: the genre 'Western stories' and the subject 'The West (United States)'.


My Take-away:
This story is not - The Little House on the Prairie Series, by Laura Engels Wilder,  this story is very much a tale of violent reprisal; a sarcastically & cheerfully written blood-soaked tale of revenge in the Nostalgic Wild West. Though enjoyable in the matter-of-fact interactions between characters, the charm of this book is the idea that Mattie doesn't ever actually kill Chaney, a set of circumstances will ultimately lead to his demise, even though she shot him a few times in the non-lethal sense. Although, there was at least one time where she was ready to end him once & for all & her revolver maybe jammed - allegory #whatever... 

I have learned that I don't really enjoy violence-filled westerns as descriptive action writing; I prefer a quick note or quick descriptions, with a focus on the human story in between. IMHO, many westerns spend to much time on the gun-fights without developing characters. I do, however, like a more personal take on the people of the pioneer world, who try to avoid violence and focus instead on the basic mission of living in a bleak & difficult landscape. I started a few differing novels and ended giving up. This novel was one of the few that a had a human element in the writing - directly because this was meant to be a re-collection of events; the feeling of despair in reading is somehow softened by a future narrator. Still, I don't enjoy rampant violence, though for westerns to be a genuine reflection of the time period, some representation will need to be made to further the story. This book was somewhere between Louis L'amour & Cormac McCarthy. Beyond books, these types of stories are perfect for some Hollywood Movies, many screenplay adaptations have been worked into successful films...




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