Charles Portis

I'm going to see if he wants to...

i want to talk to him he's he he is uh he read charles portis on our recommendation so i kind of want to see if he come on come on

yeah

but i want him to come on but we got to be like we're not done with b so you got to talk about other stuff we'll see if he bites we'll see um

right ho jeez by pg woodhouse

yeah

dog of the south by charles portis

yep

But that same year, 2010, gave us another survival story set in a very different American wilderness.

The Coen brothers adapted Charles Portis' classic 1968 novel True Grit.

Right.

And their approach to this adaptation is a masterclass in basically ignoring precedent.

Let's look at some of the dissenting voices from the readers.

One of the most insightful pushbacks came from a reader named Tony Mastrogiovannni regarding the Coen brothers' True Grit.

While we discussed how dark and pure the adaptation was, Tony pointed out that many people miss a fundamental truth about Charles Portis' original novel.

Which is?

So let me ask you this, because we share a lot of things in common, John, I'm going to tell you this.

And one of the things they absolutely wanted to discuss with you is Charles Portis.

who I love and you know he's one of these authors who you know he's like Marmite you either love him or hate him or you don't really understand him or know about him but like the people who love him love him and I think you love him and I wanted to know so my I think my gateway drug was Dog of the South and Dr. Rio Symes who is one of the most singular funniest characters incredibly

insane character

So I ran to that because I was...

I almost thought it was like two different people for a minute.

And then I was like, oh yeah, Charles Portis, that's that true grit guy.

And then when I realized that he'd done these two almost opposite things, because the organizational strategies of Masters of Atlantis is bizarre.

It's time for our author quote.

The author this episode is Charles Portis.

Mr. Portis says nothing is too long or too short either if you have a true and interesting tale and what I call a graphic writing style combined with educational aims

all right all right thank you Mr. Portis I

And perhaps more accurately today, we should say a Toro Law and Literature podcast.

podcast um our guest today is professor robert or bob cochran he's a professor at the university of arkansas and he's the author of a number of books um including a book on charles portis uh rob and i will be discussing um Charles Portis' True Grit, a book that has been famous, extremely well-known, and extremely well-received since it was published in the late 1960s.

So, Professor Cochran, Rob, thank you so much for joining us today.

Good to

Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Well, my training was in journalism, and I ended up in a literature department, so that'll tell you one thing.

The Charles Portis I wrote about basically because I've been at the University of Arkansas, and he's in Arkansas.

And I was surprised to learn at one point when I got interested in his work that there were no book-length studies about the guy.

So where does the source start us off?

It takes us first to the American frontier, to Charles Portis's 1968 novel, True Grit.

Oh, I love that we are starting here because Maddie Ross is such an incredible protagonist.

She's a 14-year-old girl whose father has been murdered by a man named Tom Chaney.