vitalwholeness

The Arkansas born and bred author, Charles Portis, wrote more than True Grit, a feat that is itself a remarkable one. I just read the last line of The Dog of the South and what a last line to an engaging book it was. Next on my reading horizon is Masters of Atlantis. I suppose I’m on a Portis jag.

What is it about Portis? Not only does he get you on the inside of his characters’ well-developed heads, but he describes the transactions of the plot with uncanny and humorous insight. Like a Garrison Keillor, he has the ability to paint a picture of the peculiarities and deficits of human nature without dehumanizing the character.

In a 1998 edition of Esquire Magazine Ron Rosenbaum wrote a review in which he referred to Portis as “a maddeningly underappreciated American writer.”

He has a way of exposing folly and absurdity that has not been imposed on the characters and plot but is found interlaced within them and it. It takes a the keen eye of the attentive observer of human nature to do that. And he has it.