Just finished reading True Grit by Charles Portis. Wow, what great read!!. I admit having loved both film versions of this tale – the 1968 movie with John Wayne and last year’s reimagining with Jeff Bridges – but I have never read the novel from which they were derived. Well, it's a coming-of-age tale, a quest and a morality lesson all wrapped up in elegant wit. It has an amazing protagonist in the character of Mattie Ross, whose voice is entirely, wonderfully original. I don’t know how Portis (who was 35 years old when he wrote the book) managed to create a feisty, 14-year-old frontier girl channeled through her later incarnation as a fortysomething spinster remembering her great adventure, but the writing is simply brilliant. Even if you are not partial to Westerns, you should read this one. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and the ending makes you grab for the tissues. Humorist Roy Blount, Jr. noted that “Charles Portis could be Cormac McCarthy if he wanted to be, but he’d rather be funny.” That’s the absolute truth. Reading True Grit led me to ponder other novels of the Western genre that I have enjoyed. And I suppose I should include McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses. But I have to say, it’s distinctly lacking in humor. Given that its two protagonists are teenage boys on an adventurous journey across the Rio Grande into Mexico in 1949, you would expect some chuckles. The two horsemen pick up a sidekick--a laughable but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins-- on their way south and finally arrive at a hacienda just this side of paradise where one of the boys stumbles into an ill-fated romance. Spare, beautiful but somber writing. After reading Portis, I can't help but wonder what he would have done with this familiar story. In thinking about novels of the West, you have to think James Michener's Centennial. And thinking of Centennial, the words "sprawling" and "epic" come to mind. Go ahead and name a trope of the old West and Centennial's got it: Native Americans, migrating white men and women, cowboys, and foreigners. It tells the story of trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters--all caught up in the dramatic events and violent conflicts that forged the destiny of our legendary West. Speaking of sprawling, epic novels, Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove falls into that category as well. Set in the late nineteenth century, it tells the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana, but its themes reach for so much more. The drive represents for all the men involved not only a daring, even foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream -- the attempt to carve a new life out of the last remaining wilderness. You probably can't talk about Western novels without talking about Jack Shaefer's Shane. It takes the classic story starter, "a stranger comes to town," and raises it to the next level. The stranger who rides out of the heart of the great glowing West, into the small Wyoming valley in the summer of 1889 is Shane. He becomes a friend and guardian to the Starrett family at a time when homesteaders and cattle rangers battled for territory and survival. Schaefer's classic brilliantly illuminates the spirit of the West through the eyes of a young boy and a hero who changes the lives of everyone around him. Other Westerns of note: My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, and Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter. All this Western talk makes me want to get my boots on and saddle up!!
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Wouldn't it be nice if authors who wrote series and sequels had the forethought to title their books in alphabetical order? Then there would be no patron confusion as to which book came next, or about why we librarians arrange them in alphabetical, instead of chronological, order. Inevitably we get questions as to why Catching Fire (the third novel of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy) is shelved before The Hunger Games and Mockingjay or why The Amber Spyglass (the third book of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy) is shelved ahead of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, or why the Harry Potter books aren't in the right order. So we salute a couple of authors who make our jobs easier: Ron Roy, author of the A to Z Mystery series for children ("The Absent Author," "The Bald Bandit," etc.) Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone mystery series ("A" is for Alibi, "B" is for Burglar, etc.) Hmmm, why are they always mysteries? Or are there others? It's a mystery I will have to investigate. It is amazing the information that one can find while doing research. While poking around the Internet for the last words of the famous departed, I happened upon other kinds of famous last words. Submitted for your approval:
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895 "Who the h*** wants to hear actors talk?" -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927 "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962 "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. Well, that's the problem being famous... your last words are liable to recorded and reported for posterity. So you better plan on being intelligible and intelligent when the Grim Reaper calls. I think Steve Jobs missed the mark here -- or perhaps he is just emblematic of the current state of our ability to communicate. "Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow," leaves a lot to be desired. On the other hand, maybe he was seeing something incredible in the great beyond which rendered him virtually speechless. Like the fact that the battery on the just-released iPhone 4S couldn't last longer than a hail stone on a hot July afternoon. His relative incoherence led me to check out some last utterances from other famous departed, which I present for your inspection: John Adams, one of our Founding Fathers and intense rival of Thomas Jefferson (1735-1826) "Thomas Jefferson--still survives..." (uttered on July 4, 1826 -- yes, Independence Day. Note: Jefferson died on the same day.) Talk about passion that lasted a lifetime... While Adams complained about his rival, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) spoke thus: "Is it the Fourth?" Comedian Lou Costello (1906-1959) reportedly commented: "That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted." I do not know if he indeed ate an ice-cream soda immediately prior to dying, or if he was remembering a happy instance from the recent or distant past! I know that given my own love of ice cream, particularly Oberweis Dairy's Chocolate Marshmallow and Udderly Truffles flavors, I might very well whisper this upon my passing as well. Actor Errol Flynn (1909-1959): "I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it." (Reportedly said shortly before his death.) Would that we all should be able to say as much looking death in the face! Economist and proponent of government fiscal and monetary interventions John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946): "I wish I'd drunk more champagne." (Oh, never let that be your dying wish: quaff the champagne now, while you can!) Writer Gertrude Stein (1874-1946): Just before she died, she asked, "What is the answer?' No answer came. She laughed and said, "In that case what is the question?" Then she died. Writer and renowned alcoholic Dylan Thomas (1914-1953): After a night of carousing at the White Horse Tavern in Manhattan: "I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row. I do believe that is a record." I believe I will stick with the ice cream... My favorite, however, is the last utterance of Francisco "Pancho" Villa, renowned Mexican revolutionary (1878-1923): "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
Guy Fawkes Day commemorates the date in 1605 when British revolutionary Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up Britain's Parliament. On November 5, he was found with explosives (hence the name The Gunpowder Plot) in the basement of the House of Lords in London, apparently only minutes away from lighting a match. His conspiracy was intended to restore Catholicism as the official religion in the Protestant nation.
The British didn't particularly admire Mr. Fawkes back then – King James I, successor to Queen Elizabeth I, hung him in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster. He's not held in high regard today either. On this day, Britons gather around bonfires to burn Fawkes in effigy. However, his anti-government spirit has become something of a rallying cry on both sides of the pond, as disaffected youth protesting reduced government spending in Britain, the Occupy Movement in the U.S. and the unaffiliated Anonymous hacker consortium, all seem to be claiming the Guy Fawkes mantle for the 21st Century. Or at least sporting replicas of the Guy Fawkes mask from the movie V for Vendetta (starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving). The movie was based on the 1980s graphic novel of the same name by Alan Moore, which was indeed inspired by Fawkes' story. V for Vendetta is set in a dystopian future United Kingdom. A mysterious masked revolutionary who calls himself "V" works to destroy the totalitarian government. A nuclear war has left much of the world destroyed, though most of the damage to the country is indirect, through floods and crop failures. A fascist party called "Norsefire" rules the country as a police state. The anarchist V, dressed in his Guy Fawkes mask, commences a violent and intentionally theatrical campaign to murder his former captors, bring down the government, and convince the people to rule themselves. If you haven't read it, go and buy a copy. It is remarkably prescient in regards to the current anti-government, anti-business atmosphere both here and abroad. Etymology -- the origin of words. Ever wonder where your favorite word came from? Or am I the only person on Earth with favorite words? Come on, admit it, you have favorite words and phrases -- so where did they come from? Who originated them? For example, the word catawampus or cattywampus: one of my favorites. Where the hell did that come from? According to the Merriem-Webster New Book of Word Histories: it is related to catercorner. And thumbing ahead a few pages brings us this explanation: It was the French -- AGAIN!! "The Medieval French were casual about spelling. They apparently took the Latin quattuor meaning "four" and spelled it quatre (as the modern French do) and catre. Then the English picked it up, bastardizing the spelling even further to cater. " The word still meant four, but to the limeys it mostly meant the four in dice and cards. The arrangement of the four dots on a die suggests an X. By the second half of the 16th century,a new verb appeared: "cater" which meant to move diagonally, which then morphed into an adverb meaning "diagonal" or "diagonally." Once it came over with the immigrants to the New World, it morphed even further into catercorner, and cater-cornered, then catty-corner amd kitty-corner. One of the most unusual variations is catawampus or cattywampus. This folk term has migrated the meaning from 'diagonal' to 'askew' through 'off-kilter' and is now often used by a select population to mean "discombobulated or out of joint."
Thus endeth the lesson and sorry if I bored you... |
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