Just glance at my westerns shelf and you find 3 books, all westerns and just as rooten’ tooten’ different as they can be. As you read on you will first come across a western in all its bloody glory. Cormac can always be relied upon to include two things in his writing-blood and guts; and a blatantly poor grammer. (Did you catch it? I included a grammatical error at the end of the sentence. grammar/grammer HA!) The second book is authored by Tony Hillerman. In this example, we find all the trappings of classic westerns: cowboys, native Americans, horses, and ancient ruins. But wait, there’s a little extra something which makes it stand apart from the famous classics of Zane Gray. It’s set in modern times, and unsolved murders are at the core of the plot. The final book on my westerns shelf was read for the April tag, Strong Women. Fourteen- year- old Mattie Ross leaves her home to hunt down the man who shot her father in cold blood during an altercation. With the help of the meanest available U. S. Marshal, the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, they embark on a quest to pursue her father’s killer into Indian Territory. Mattie proves her mettle by standing her ground, insisting upon joining the manhunt. Even after several attempts to ditch her and leave her to fall behind, Mattie shows all present she is her own person and will not back down. Reviewers love the work. “Like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn True Grit captures the naïve elegance of the American voice”-Jonathan Lethem “True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time.”-Roald Dahl From the Afterword, Donna Tartt likens Mattie to Huckleberry Finn. Like Huck, True Grit is a monologue. Both capture the voice of the South through its use of idioms, and both have a strong sense of place and time. Mattie’s voice, her narrative tone is naïve, hardheaded, without any self-consciousness. This unintentional comic sense comes from her blasé view of the American frontier despite its various forms of death by stabbing or public hangings. Her deadpan delivery is the reason I gave it three stars rather than four. It didn’t strike me as funny, but rather slightly depressing.
(Did you catch it? I included a grammatical error at the end of the sentence. grammar/grammer HA!)
The second book is authored by Tony Hillerman. In this example, we find all the trappings of classic westerns: cowboys, native Americans, horses, and ancient ruins. But wait, there’s a little extra something which makes it stand apart from the famous classics of Zane Gray. It’s set in modern times, and unsolved murders are at the core of the plot.
The final book on my westerns shelf was read for the April tag, Strong Women. Fourteen- year- old Mattie Ross leaves her home to hunt down the man who shot her father in cold blood during an altercation. With the help of the meanest available U. S. Marshal, the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, they embark on a quest to pursue her father’s killer into Indian Territory.
Mattie proves her mettle by standing her ground, insisting upon joining the manhunt. Even after several attempts to ditch her and leave her to fall behind, Mattie shows all present she is her own person and will not back down.
Reviewers love the work. “Like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn True Grit captures the naïve elegance of the American voice”-Jonathan Lethem
“True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time.”-Roald Dahl
From the Afterword, Donna Tartt likens Mattie to Huckleberry Finn. Like Huck, True Grit is a monologue. Both capture the voice of the South through its use of idioms, and both have a strong sense of place and time.
Mattie’s voice, her narrative tone is naïve, hardheaded, without any self-consciousness. This unintentional comic sense comes from her blasé view of the American frontier despite its various forms of death by stabbing or public hangings. Her deadpan delivery is the reason I gave it three stars rather than four. It didn’t strike me as funny, but rather slightly depressing.