True Grit

True Grit (2005) – Charles Portis
Bloomsbury | ISBN: 9780747572633
Condition: Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books

The American Wild West. A magnificent land of wide-open spaces, rugged individualism, questionable personal hygiene and an alarming tendency for minor disagreements to escalate into gunfire. It was an age when justice frequently travelled on horseback, whisky was considered an essential provision and a man’s reputation depended largely upon how quickly he could produce a revolver. Fortunately, nobody informed fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross that this was supposed to be a man’s world.

Welcome to True Grit, Charles Portis’s wonderfully eccentric Western masterpiece, featuring one of the most determined young heroines in American literature and a supporting cast of rogues, outlaws and lawmen whose collective enthusiasm for sensible behaviour is distinctly limited.

When Mattie’s father is murdered by the treacherous Tom Chaney, she decides that justice must be done. Not eventually, not when the authorities find it convenient, and certainly not after some tedious discussion about whether a young girl should be involving herself in dangerous criminal investigations.

Mattie wants Chaney brought to account, and preferably without anybody wasting her time.

To accomplish this, she hires Deputy US Marshal Reuben J. ’Rooster’ Cogburn, a one-eyed, hard-drinking, overweight veteran with a formidable reputation for violence and an approach to law enforcement that occasionally resembles a personal disagreement conducted with firearms.

Cogburn is not exactly the shining embodiment of legal respectability. He drinks too much, argues frequently and possesses a distinctly flexible interpretation of professional conduct. Nevertheless, Mattie has been assured that he possesses the one quality she considers indispensable.

True grit.

Joining their expedition is Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who also wants Chaney and brings his own mixture of professional ambition, wounded pride and questionable judgement to an already complicated arrangement.

The resulting journey into Indian Territory becomes a gloriously entertaining combination of pursuit, danger, stubborn personalities and verbal confrontations in which Mattie frequently proves more formidable than the armed men surrounding her.

Portis’s genius lies partly in his extraordinary dialogue and beautifully controlled humour. Mattie’s precise, uncompromising narration gives the novel its distinctive personality, combining youthful determination with an almost supernatural confidence in her own judgement.

She is practical, argumentative, financially astute and quite prepared to lecture hardened criminals and experienced lawmen upon their moral and professional shortcomings.

Naturally, everybody finds this absolutely delightful.

Originally published in 1968, True Grit became a celebrated classic of American fiction, later adapted into films starring John Wayne in 1969 and Jeff Bridges in 2010. Beneath its entertaining Western adventure lies a thoughtful exploration of courage, vengeance, loyalty and the uncomfortable differences between justice and personal retribution.

This 2005 Bloomsbury edition, offered in Good condition by Crappy Old Books, is an excellent acquisition for admirers of American literature, classic Westerns and sharply humorous fiction featuring characters who are considerably more complicated than their reputations suggest.

A thrilling, witty and wonderfully distinctive novel that demonstrates courage has very little to do with physical size, impressive weaponry or the ability to consume astonishing quantities of whisky.

Sometimes the most dangerous person in the territory is a fourteen-year-old girl who knows exactly what she wants.

And has absolutely no intention of accepting a refund.

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