Mattie Ross In "True Grit"

On Monday, J.L. Bell of Oz and Ends (and Boston 1775) posted about True Grit by Charles Portis, who just died in February. If, like John and me, you feel True Grit is a masterpiece, you'll want to read his interesting take on main character Mattie Ross. Check out the comments to his piece for further discussion from the two of  us.

In short, John says he "came to view the character of Mattie Ross through the lens of autism spectrum disorder." I view her through the lens of feminism. Yesterday, I read this appreciation of Charles Portis by Kaleb Horton at Slate.  Horton concludes, "Portis’ novels about losers from Arkansas have aged so well because he understood something about America: We’re a profoundly individualistic country." Now I think Mattie Ross can just be Mattie Ross.

Right now you can get the Kindle edition of True Grit for a $1.99. I just bought it, because True Grit is the rare book that I've read and thought, I'd really like to have this. My goodness, you can get all the Kindle editions of his books for $1.99 each. I just bought Norwood, too, because Kaleb Horton says it's Portis' most "joke-dense."


As part of my observance of Original Content's 18th anniversary year, here's a dip into the archive about my read of True Grit back in 2012: Gritty Reading On My Kindle.