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True Grit is very good and it's tragic that it's been forgotten or misunderstood. Agree with me!
* Roald Dahl: True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time. What book has given me greater pleasure in the last five years? Or in the last twenty? What a writer.
* Donna Tartt (who wrote the introduction to the edition I have): I cannot think of another novel—*any* novel—which is so delightful to so many disparate age groups and literary tastes.
Tartt also says that True Grit was, before being basically forgotten, taught in her honors English class in High School, along with Whitman, Hawthorne, and Poe. I don't doubt it.
But now, no one I know has read it unless I've pressed the thing into their hands personally.
When I got it, I thought it'd be a paint-by-numbers Western. Not really my thing, but it was short and I figured I'd give it a try. I was blown away. It's funny, touching, sometimes sad, exciting, and absolutely fascinating.
Part of what makes it special is the voice of the narrator-protagonist. I'm not sure I've ever encountered anyone in literature quite like her. She's got a quick and dry wit, and she's driven and tough. She's telling the story as an older woman looking back at what happened when she was 14.
And it's strange, because I don't think I'd ever want to hang out with her. You're cheering for her the whole way, but she doesn't seem fun, or even pleasant. But her harshness is part of the fun of the novel.
In short: go read it.
#entertainment
source
* Roald Dahl: True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time. What book has given me greater pleasure in the last five years? Or in the last twenty? What a writer.
* Donna Tartt (who wrote the introduction to the edition I have): I cannot think of another novel—*any* novel—which is so delightful to so many disparate age groups and literary tastes.
Tartt also says that True Grit was, before being basically forgotten, taught in her honors English class in High School, along with Whitman, Hawthorne, and Poe. I don't doubt it.
But now, no one I know has read it unless I've pressed the thing into their hands personally.
When I got it, I thought it'd be a paint-by-numbers Western. Not really my thing, but it was short and I figured I'd give it a try. I was blown away. It's funny, touching, sometimes sad, exciting, and absolutely fascinating.
Part of what makes it special is the voice of the narrator-protagonist. I'm not sure I've ever encountered anyone in literature quite like her. She's got a quick and dry wit, and she's driven and tough. She's telling the story as an older woman looking back at what happened when she was 14.
And it's strange, because I don't think I'd ever want to hang out with her. You're cheering for her the whole way, but she doesn't seem fun, or even pleasant. But her harshness is part of the fun of the novel.
In short: go read it.
#entertainment
source
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