Chapter Seven

Well, I don't want to give too much away if you haven't read the ending of the book but, yes, that is a ball of snakes for today's picture! Snakes WILL ball up like that.

It is a rousing ending to a great book. For sure. I was in mind of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for some reason--the cave, of course, but it's more than that. The dark description, the pace of the action, and the closeness of the narration to Mattie reminded me of the ending of Tom Sawyer. Of course, I'm not the first to make the connection, although Mattie is usually compared to Huck and not Tom. I think she's more akin to Tom, really. She has the same bold naivete, doesn't she? Still, it might make an interesting piece of research to find out what was on Portis' shelf and what he thought of Twain.

I won't reveal too much about the plot in case folks are reading this before they finish, but Tom Chaney underestimates Mattie's grit, as we knew he would, and Rooster gets a chance to show that he's not all talk. And Mattie is put in a most unwieldy position. Will it cost her an arm and leg to get out? Almost!

Great stuff with the bandits--you knew they'd catch up with them, didn't you? These are some great roles for the Coen Brothers to fill. Who would you cast as Lucky Ned Pepper and The Original Greaser Bob? I have to watch the movie now--the old one with John Wayne--to see who played them in that.

One interesting item appears on page 177, where you can see what I think is Mattie's being sort of sucked in by the beginning of the glorification of outlaw culture that you saw in the Depression era. Mattie starts making a distinction between "trash" outlaws and those that were "not so simple" and "not altogether rotten." Hm. Interesting. Also some classic descriptions of how good people go bad. Mattie had never thought of an outlaw having a childhood and how that childhood might contribute to him choosing "the hoot-owl trail" (I'll never tire of that phrase). Is Portis wandering in the area of American Naturalism and Realism? It does read sort of like Crane or Norris, doesn't it? Or is it just me? I think you could make the argument that this is really a book that belongs to that era. It's hard to think of this book, which came out in 1968, as belonging to the same era as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). This is, of course, why the book is overlooked as a serious piece of fiction. I think it will be appreciated with time. There is certainly much new research that could be written about this book from the perspective of 2010.

Some funny stuff amidst all the action: Mattie starts offering the services of her lawyer to Ned Pepper. Chaney keeps talking about how "nothing is going right for me." No kidding. I'm just glad Mattie's old Dragoon pistol works when she needs it to. As she says, if she was any kind of a gunman, then she'd have a better gun.

I'm kind of surprised that Mattie doubts the "officers," as she sometimes calls Rooster and LaBoeuf. Of course we know they haven't abandoned her. Rooster certainly proves his grit and Mattie's response?: "No grit? Rooster Cogburn? Not much."

Well, there's just so much at the end and I don't want to give it away if you haven't read it. Everybody has grit at the end, even poor little Blackie. I guess Rooster just did what he had to do. Poor Blackie, though, that was the hardest part of the book. And Rooster. What a fitting end. Just like the old west--fading into the sunset.

I just love it when things live up to the hype.

Next: The Movie! I'm just glad I didn't see it before reading the book.-