Portis meets his Rooster
― pplains, Monday, 2 April 2012 20:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
was planning to read more after True Grit. Haven't.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Monday, 2 April 2012 20:45 (1 year ago) Permalink
n/a I kind of got the feeling that he just sort of wrote when the mood took him, that he could lapse between 'being a writer' and 'normal life' relatively easily. I think part of the reason he has stayed off the radar, publicity wise is because he really doesn't think writing is that big of a deal.
At least that's my theory. I also think it's why he's so good at it. It's like the best furniture is made by the guy who just sets out to make a chair for you to sit on, you know?
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 20:45 (1 year ago) Permalink
xpost did you enjoy True Grit?
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 20:46 (1 year ago) Permalink
"was planning to read more after True Grit. Haven't."
Fascinating!!!
― De Laurentiiis (admrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 20:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
no trolling in the Portis thread. THIS IS A NICE PLACE
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 20:59 (1 year ago) Permalink
Think you're pretty otm, VegemiteGrrl. Last year the Oxford American convinced him to emerge from his house to accept an award and he even did a little reading. My good friend got some great shots of him, so I'm vicariously excited. Word about town is he's got a couple of go-to restaurants near his home here in Little Rock. I always keep an eye out when I eat in those joints (which is pretty rare). No sightings yet.
I'm voting Gringos, and I may be alone here. It may be because it was my first. Hear there's a film adapt in the works. Hoping for like a cross between a sad-sack Billy Jack and sad-sack Jack T. Colton.
― andrew m., Monday, 2 April 2012 21:37 (1 year ago) Permalink
i was pleasantly surprised how good/different gringos was! i was a little worried since it was the most recent one. more plot-oriented and a lot more characters than the earlier stuff but i thought it held up
― congratulations (n/a), Monday, 2 April 2012 21:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
yes, I liked TG v much
admrl having a bad LA day
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Monday, 2 April 2012 21:40 (1 year ago) Permalink
Gringos is the only one I haven't read, I need to hunt it down.
I read a really cool informal conversation with Portis recently, I think someone put it on the True Grit thread --- I'll see if I can find it and repost it here.
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 21:41 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think I will have a hard time not voting for True Grit as I think about it more and more...Mattie is one of my all-time favorite characters from literature, right up there with Harper Lee's Scout. I'm a sucker for a girl with gumption :)
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 21:42 (1 year ago) Permalink
Voted Masters of Atlantis. Odd, deadpan hilarity.
"He also commissioned a drawing of a pop-eyed, moronic human face, that of a collegiate-looking fellow with spiky hair and a big bow tie, and had rubber stamps made of it. The face had a strange power to annoy, even to sicken the spirit--one had to turn away from it--and Popper directed that it be stamped on every page of Hen's books, in a different place on each page so that the reader could not prepare himself."
― Chris L, Monday, 2 April 2012 21:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
Dog of the South by a hair over Masters of Atlantis.
John Dolan's savaging of Franzen's The Corrections has stuck w/me due to his digression on Portis halfway through.
― etc, Monday, 2 April 2012 22:02 (1 year ago) Permalink
Word about town is he's got a couple of go-to restaurants near his home here in Little Rock. I always keep an eye out when I eat in those joints (which is pretty rare).
I saw him at that franchise restaurant next door to the Town Pump. I tried to take a very nonchalant photo while I walked past his table, but maybe knowing in the back of my mind that he loves his privacy, it didn't turn out so well.
― pplains, Monday, 2 April 2012 23:45 (1 year ago) Permalink
that's still pretty A+, just knowing it's him.
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 23:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
He's...beautiful
― Blomqvist, Jesper (admrl), Monday, 2 April 2012 23:47 (1 year ago) Permalink
Ha! That's rad, pplains. I think I've sat at that very booth (or one just like it anywhere else in the place)! Good spot fer keepin an eye on the car.
― andrew m., Tuesday, 3 April 2012 02:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
Dog
― MIke Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 3 April 2012 02:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
With Norwood a close second
Quality control so high with Portis, won't be surprised when every book has at least a few champions.
― andrew m., Tuesday, 3 April 2012 02:45 (1 year ago) Permalink
Really? Remember reading the first few chapters of Masters Of Atlantis and thinking it was kind of arch without being funny. And Gringos seemed to the only one in print at one point (although surely True Grit was as well) so I always pegged it for some kind of crossover dilution without even opening it. Perhaps it is time for a second chance.
― MIke Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 3 April 2012 03:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
Meanwhile, at the back of the crowd, Portis held the envelope in his hand. He opened it, pulled out the check, studied it for a minute, then leaned over to show it to the woman seated next to him before sliding it back into the envelope.
(Article featuring andrew's friend's pics.)
― pplains, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 03:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
Cool.
Guy I always think of when I think of Portis is Padgett Powell. Still have to finish reading The Interrogative Mode.
― MIke Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 3 April 2012 03:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
i finally read true grit so now i can vote for norwood with confidence. i do wish true grit was like three times as long though.
― congratulations (n/a), Friday, 4 May 2012 21:05 (1 year ago) Permalink
also voted norwood - love this passage:
Rita Lee came back with a frozen Milky Way and some confession magazines and comic books. She read about a miser duck called Uncle Scrooge, and his young duck nephews, whose adventures took place in a city where all the bystanders, the figures on the street, were anthropoid dogs walking erect. Norwood read about Superman and the double-breasted-suited Metropolis underworld. It was a kryptonite story and not a bad one.
anybody ever seen the movie version of norwood w/ jon voight (its meant to be terrible, tho' voigt seems like p good casting)? the closest nov i know to norwood's gothic comedy is modern baptists by james wilcox, which i wld also v much rec for those who have exhausted the portis bunch
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 4 May 2012 21:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Monday, 14 May 2012 00:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 00:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
omg I'm an idiot I didn't vote. That is why True Grit = 0
fail ;_;
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 00:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
ha surprising that masters of atlantis got 1 vote and true grit got 0.
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 16 May 2012 18:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
it's all my fault
:(
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 16 May 2012 18:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
ha surprising that masters of atlantis got 1 vote and true grit got 0.― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:06 PM (1 hour ago)
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:06 PM (1 hour ago)
― Shakes-a-maxion (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 16 May 2012 19:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
Arkansas native Charles Portis, author of True Grit, will soon release his first new book in more than 20 years.
Escape Velocity: A Charles Portis Miscellany will be published this fall by Butler Center Books, a division of the Central Arkansas Library System.
The book, which collects Portis' nonfiction and short stories as well as a memoir and a play, spans his half-century-long writing career, covering his early journalism from the 1950s when he worked for several newspapers up to more recent magazine stories published in the Atlantic and the Oxford American.
― pplains, Wednesday, 13 June 2012 14:21 (1 year ago) Permalink
nice
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 13 June 2012 14:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
weeeee
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 13 June 2012 16:24 (1 year ago) Permalink