True Grit

[caddyman]

So here we are, then: February starts and we are one-twelfth of the way into 2011 already¹. Cor, tempus fugit and all that.

I see from today’s Times that the Coen Brothers’ film, True Grit has stimulated sales of the book it was based upon. I am a fan of the Coen Brothers and it may well be that I shall have to make time in my schedule to go and see this film, which I believe is up for a gazillion Oscars.

I had assumed that it was a remake of the 1969 John Wayne movie, which was an entertaining, if not particularly noteworthy one-dimensional cowboy flick. It turns out that it is not. In fact, the Coens have deliberately not remade the earlier movie, but gone back to and readapted the original novel. Indeed they have been so faithful, I understand, to the source material, that entire swathes of dialogue are lifted from the book.

This can be no bad thing, given that Roald Dahl described the novel, True Grit as “the best novel to come my way for a very long time”. It remained on the New York Times best seller list for 22 weeks.

Despite the fact that I have a huge amount of reading material to get through, both in ordinary book form and as downloads (mainly free!) on my Kindle I came very close to downloading a copy of the book, but somehow managed to stop myself and just added it to my Amazon wish list instead.

I really do have a huge amount of reading to keep me occupied for, well, years I guess, without having to buy anything new.

Trouble is, I know I will end up buying something new at some point, but for now I have resisted the urge.



¹Actually a little more than a twelfth in terms of days, but it’s one month down and eleven to go, so who cares?

Comments

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

I believe that the Groove-O-Meter here twitched madly for True Grit the other week. If lots of the dialogue were taken from the book, then the book will be worth reading indeed. It's poetic stuff.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Yes, it seems that although the book was published in 1968, the author, Charles Portis (who is living in Salinger-like seclusion somewhere in Little Rock, Arkansas), was very deliberate in using archaic, formal 19th century frontier speech patterns.

Apparently despite its popularity at the time, John Wayne's movie effectively buried it and it's only with this new version that ot's being rediscovered.

[littleonionz.livejournal.com]

Hmm might have to buy the book to put on the pile next to the bed. I do like the Coen brother's work, which first?!