This chick has grit. Lots of grit. Great read, loved her hard-nosed determination:
All I have heard out of you so far is talk. I know you can drink whiskey and I have seen you kill a gray rat. All the rest has been talk. They told me you had grit and that is why I came to you. I am not paying for talk
5 stars!
I have just finished 'reading' this one on audio book and I loved it! I haven't read many westerns but it's hard to imagine that they get much better than this. Its strength in my opinion lies largely in the great character of Mattie - at once tough as old boots and quite puritanical:
ReplyDeleteMattie: I hope you don't think I'm going to keep you in whiskey?
Rooster: I don't buy that, I confiscate it. And a touch of it wouldn't do you any harm against the night air!
Mattie: I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.
That's the best line I've read in a long time. On many occasions I had trouble not laughing out loud on the bus whilst listening to this on my iPod.
Just one more comment, the names in this book are awesome: Lucky Ned Pepper the Bandit Chieftain, the Original Greaser Bob, Rooster Cogburn, and General Stirling Price (who is a cat no less). 5 out of 5!
Check out the comment on True Grit on the Guardian's Top 1000 novels you must read. They should never have left out True Grit!
ReplyDeleteTrue Grit by Charles Portis (1968)
How can you leave out the story of Mattie Ross avenging her father's blood over in the Choctaw Nation when the snow was on the ground? True Grit has the toughest 14-year-old in literature. She, certainly, wouldn't be impressed at being overlooked, but her opinion of newspapers was low anyway: "The paper editors are great ones for reaping where they have not sown."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/20/1000-crime-novels-recommended
So true!