The Extra Cool Group! (of people Michael is experimenting on) discussion

I thought someone might enjoy this article on the True Grit book in comparison to the movies.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/09/di...

Thanks. I've been wondering if I should see the remake. The previews with Jeff Bridges talking like his mouth is stuffed haven't turned me on. It's been too many years since I last read the book or saw The Duke's movie, but I remember liking both. I never read any other novel by Portis, either.

I just picked up the book today but I figure I've got time to read it since I won't see the movie until it hits Redbox because I have no faith the Coen Bros. will make a movie I like. The article said the new movie is more faithful to the book.

I've been meaning to read the book after I read Nancy's great review of it. I haven't seen the original movie. I'll probably read the book first and wait for dvd as well. I admit that I do love to compare books with film versions.

Mariel wrote: "I've been meaning to read the book after I read Nancy's great review of it."

Me too. My husband and I picked up a copy after we saw the trailer for the new movie. I haven't had a chance to read it, but my husband was not impressed.

I remember seeing the John Wayne movie at the drive-in with my parents when it came out. I liked it when I was little, but it doesn't survive adulthood very well.

i guess i am one of those people to whom the coen brothers can do no wrong. i've found each and every one of their films to be impressive. really looking forward to True Grit!

I'm sort of looking forward to it too ever since I heard it has an ending.

I'm not a John Wayne fan at all, but loved the original film. I can't wait to see the remake. Mariel, I think you'll enjoy the book. It's adventurous, sassy, and downright funny.

I've never read the book but I'm dying to now ever since a coworker went on and on about how great it is. All copies checked out and there's a long reserve list. Guess I'll have to just buy a copy for my collection. Looking forward to reading the book and seeing the movie. Mark, the Coen brothers are great movie makers.

I was lucky I got my library's single copy right away. Now that the movie is out, they probably should get a few more. Yes, the Coen Brothers have made many great movies. Barton Fink is one of my favorites.

what is your favorite coen brothers film? mine is Barton Fink. but there's a lot that are tied for second.

No Country for Old Men was great too, though I haven't read the book yet.

and what is your favorite, nancy?

i love No Country but i haven't watched it a second time yet. usually i watch them multiple times, but that one was a little painful. i'll get to it soon though.

I might have to give Barton Fink another look. I have never been fond of BF or The Big Lebowski, which are the two movies it seems are most liked by Coen Bros. fans.

Fargo is my all-time favorite, but I've never forgotten Blood Simple and I saw it back when it first came out on VHS. And I really, really like No Country for Old Men.

I was all set to read the book No Country for Old Men but it seemed like it was word-for-word with the movie. Plus, I don't care for the way the author writes. His style of using no punctuation bugs me.

Oh, I forgot about Fargo! That one is tied with BF for my favorites. The Big Lebowski was good too, just not the best.

No Country for Old Men haunted me for days. Javier Bardem is one creepy dude!

NCFOM still haunts me. Random violence scares the sh*t out of me. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic in that movie.

Fargo was like nothing I had ever seen before. That is a perfect movie from start to finish.

Tressa wrote: "I was all set to read the book No Country for Old Men but it seemed like it was word-for-word with the movie. Plus, I don't care for the way the author writes. His style of using no punctuation bug..."

No punctuation? That's ridiculous. It's available for a reason - proper communication. Thanks for the heads up.

Jim, I was exaggerating just a little. McCarthy does throw in a period here and there. I was reading an interview with him and he said too much punctuation clutters up the page. I thought that was funny. I tried to read one of his stories about a backwoods brother and sister but just couldn't fall into it. But he does have some great stories to tell.

avoidance of punctuation doesn't bother me at all--it seems a perfectly good way of slowing the reading down, making the reader consider who is doing the talking (in the absence of quotation marks).

I think that is the reason this is done, by McCarthy and other authors. But this rationale does not make it less annoying; I would like to decide for myself how fast to read a book, and not have the author dictating that his/her work is extra-important and deserving of my time.

McCarthy's avoidance of punctuation doesn't bother me at all--it seems a perfectly good way of slowing the reading down, making the reader consider who is doing the talking (in the absence of quotation marks).

This is interesting. In the case of The Road, I felt like it sped the work up instead of slowing it down.

Miriam wrote: "I think that is the reason this is done, by McCarthy and other authors. But this rationale does not make it less annoying; I would like to decide for myself how fast to read a book, and not have the author dictating that his/her work is extra-important and deserving of my time."

I agree. I quit The Road because I thought it was distracting and it was annoying to have to puzzle out sentences. Charlie Huston doesn't use quotes on dialogue and just starts the line with a - and that's about as much as I can handle.

I saw the new True Grit over the weekend. It was excellent. I thought it was much, much better than the John Wayne version. Let's face it, John Wayne turned every role he did into John Wayne rather than becoming the character. Jeff Bridges does a great job of becoming the character rather than making the character into himself.

I'm not a big Coen brothers fan, but my husband is. Raising Arizona is one of my favorites, and I really liked O Brother, Where Art Thou?. I can't say I've really liked much else they've done.

Wouldn't it be more fair to say the movie of NCFOM was 'word-for-word' with the book?

Of course, Jim. But since I saw the movie first and remembered the dialog very well, that's how I saw it when I tried to read the book.

I have never been a John Wayne fan. Don't think he can act at all.

Sandi wrote: "Let's face it, John Wayne turned every role he did into John Wayne rather than becoming the character."

I agree with the exception of his work in The Searchers and Red River. And The Long Voyage Home but that's not totally fair because he wasn't "John Wayne" then.

Tressa wrote: "I have never been a John Wayne fan. Don't think he can act at all."

Oh, Tressa, no! Say it ain't so! ;) I could put together an emergency John Wayne Appreciation Pack for you on a moment's notice so just let me know!

My ex-boss just about passed out on the floor when I told her Wayne can't act. This was years ago, and she's probably never forgiven me. I'm sure he has his moments in the movies he made classics, but he's just not for me.

Mike wrote: "@Jim Proper communication occurs all the time without punctuation--verbal communication leaps to mind. Joseph Williams in Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace discusses 'rules' at length (real rules, social rules, and invented rules) and has much to say about how the 'rules' have been used to both stifle and standardize speech, written and spoken. Poets abandon the 'rules' regularly...."

It can, but I don't like too much of it. It's not that I'm a total fan of rules nor do I mind playing with punctuation occasionally to make a point, but to consistently ignore it just wears me out, much the way gratuitous violence, sex or other bad behaviors do in a movie or a novel. For instance, some profanity is fine, but constant profanity loses any shock value or emphasis & just makes the character & the writer seem stupid, completely lacking in vocabulary & imagination.

Punctuation, capitalization, spacing & such are all very important parts of the structure of writing that make it understandable. When I have to read over a sentence several times to make sense of it because a comma is missing, that annoys me. I won't read an entire short story like that, much less a book. Hence, the author has failed to communicate to me at all. I like logic puzzles, just not in the structure of my reading. YMMV & that's fine.

Tressa wrote: "My ex-boss just about passed out on the floor when I told her Wayne can't act. This was years ago, and she's probably never forgiven me. I'm sure he has his moments in the movies he made classics, ..."

Hah! Love it. I like a lot of John Wayne's movies & couldn't agree with you more. Like several others here, I agree that he couldn't act & didn't. He was him &, if the rest of the movie fit around him, then all was good - rarely great, but I found his movies entertaining. IMO, the part of Rooster Cogburn fit him like a glove.

Well, if he uses some punctuation, enough that it keeps sentences from being confusing, then I might be interested. I don't insist on Strunk & White being followed to the letter since I'm not that well acquainted with them myself.

I do enjoy some variations. Roger Zelazny, my favorite author, often played with punctuation & the layout of words to convey a lot of feeling. (He really wanted to be a poet & wrote a lot of it, but made his money writing fantasy & SF, usually so meshed together that no one was sure which it was & he wouldn't say.) Other books I've enjoyed have played around with some aspects of speech & punctuation in places, too. I just object to too much of it.

It sounds as if McCarthy does know the rules & has some system for breaking them that appeals to you. I agree that to successfully break the rules, you have to know them exceedingly well. Just breaking them out of ignorance sucks, as you said. I read a fair few ARCs & help correct them occasionally. That's one reason why I know that missing or misplaced punctuation can drive me nuts.
"Let's eat, Jane."
"Let's eat Jane."
There's a world of difference due to that comma.
;-)

Mike, I didn't think you were being dismissive or snarky. I understand your point & your clarification was good. I don't recall seeing that word before, but I'm familiar with the concept.

Possibly that's a personal failing on my part - impatience, I suspect - but I've never cared much for too much of that in prose. A little bit goes a long way for me. I don't care much for poetry in general, either. Limericks or lyrics are more my speed.
;-)

Then again, I may have just set him up and will incur his wrath—casting me out of the Cormac McCarthy fan club,

Well, I suppose you can stay in, as long as you can verify the secret handshake and recite the pledge.

Actually, that's a term I hadn't encountered yet. But, it's definitely something I've noticed in both McCarthy's work and in poetry--both writing it and reading it.

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.

There's a visual difference when you're looking at a poem; there's also a visual difference when you're looking at the page of a Cormac McCarthy book (compared to the page of an author who uses normal punctuation). I find his punctuation decisions make the reading go faster for me, and in the dialogue I VERY RARELY have issues with following who is talking--after all, it's McCarthy's job, if he's not going to use quotations, to make it damned clear who is talking.

Poetry usually baffles me—why the hell can't they (the poets) just say whatever it is they believe they have to say?

Do you believe the goal of the prose writer is also to just say whatever they have to say? A lot of my favorite writings are open to interpretation.

Mike wrote: "I suppose I should add that I expect a poem to mean something..."

I'd add, "or at least evoke an emotion or a strong visual." Maybe that's part of meaning?

I vaguely recall a class in school about poetry & that there were some standards that had evolved to mean certain things; rhythms, specific forms & words. It all seemed very obscure to me, but then most of the English courses in school did. Although I loved reading, I pretty much detested English as a course of study. Teachers seemed to go out of their way to find the worst things for us to read & to come up with odd & illogical trivia to test us on.

Wow. What did poetry every do to you two? :-D I have always loved poetry and it's rare not to understand what the poem is about.

I think I'll get you all fired up:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Don,t pay attention to this guy Mike, he's a troublemaker.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I told you he was a troublemaker.

The plum poem isn't as obtuse as the one about the red wheelbarrow.

Let me guess: Maciek hated On Chesil Beach and Mike loved it.

Hey, WCW was cool. No one else pulled out the plums. The man had balls.

Let's say we love the same books...but in different ways.

That's a shame, you're missing some wonderful puntucation.

Okay.

Tressa wrote: "Wow. What did poetry every do to you two? :-D I have always loved poetry and it's rare not to understand what the poem is about."

Possibly it was English teachers, not poetry itself. It took me years to enjoy Steinbeck after having "The Red Pony" shoved down my throat 3 times. I'm a contrary, stubborn person. When something gets my back up, I stay mad a long time. (One time I didn't cut my hair for 6 or 7 years because my mother & wife nagged me to get it cut once too often.) Since the poetry class was probably 35 years ago, it's probably about time to give it a second chance, though.
;-)

Seriously, like Mike, I just don't normally get it. I'm a real fan of Zelazny's prose & really try to get his poetry. It bores me, goes right over my head - usually both. Ditto with Whitman & he's another I really tried to read. There's even some of his stuff that I like a bit, but not enough to ever make it through "Leaves of Grass". Kipling is more my speed. His stuff I understood & liked, especially Gungha Din which Jim Croce made into a great song.

My husband has Asperger's and he hates poetry because he doesn't get it and he had teaches who got angry and frustrated when he saw different interpretations of a poem than they did. That is not what a teacher is supposed to do, and luckily I never had one like them. I showed my husband a favorite poem--can't remember which one, but it's a well-known one--and to me the meaning was obvious but he just couldn't grasp it.

Bad English teachers are a pet peeve of mine, Tressa. I had several in school - mostly at a pompous, prep school. I watched too many kids become completely turned off to reading by them. I seemed to have been born with an innate love of reading, but it was tested quite a few times as we'd get assigned 'classics' that were thrust upon us way too early or just sucked.

With my own kids, I encouraged them to read anything they wanted & never worried about whether it was a 'good' book or not. Usually, my wife or I had already read the book or would, so that we could discuss it with them. We keep a couple of thousand books around the house & the kids used to ask me for help picking out a book. I always tried to make it enjoyable & now they all love to read.

A love of reading is the main thing a teacher should instill. The quality of the books will follow naturally after that & most 'classics' require life experience & a patience that was beyond what I had when they were forced on me. That did nothing but turn me off & could have ruined a life-skill that should be enjoyable. It did for many of my friends.

I am lucky in that I never had a terrible English teacher, which is important to me because it's about the only subject I really enjoyed in school. Well, I did enjoy history--still do--but hated math. My 10th grade English teacher instilled an appreciation of literature and poetry and I still think about her to this day: Kay Smith, Homewood High School, Homewood, AL.

my most memorable english teacher was a faded southern belle who enjoyed commenting on the War of Northern Oppression, openly imitated & mocked her openly gay teaching assistant, asked girls with short skirts What Are You Selling Honey, and would describe her hot flashes to her students as she was having them ("i think i'm having another hot flash darlings!"). she had the film A Man For All Seasons memorized, you could see her mouthing the lines of dialogue as she watched it. she was a real character, especially in orange county. she told me i'd never amount to anything!

ah, mrs. durham, rest in peace. forgive me for pouring superglue in your classroom keyholes! i will always appreciate her for introducing me to Light in August.

Our aging southern/local history library talked about "The Woe-uh" (The Civil War). When I was in high school (way back in '83 *bites knuckle*) for a "treat" we had senior movies in the small auditorium: A Man for all Seasons! Who in their right mind would think that would be fun for a roomful of 18-year-olds?!

Mike, you poor soul. You didn't stand a chance.

LOL I had a great teacher in HS. When he was talking he used to get closer and closer to the door, stop in midsentence and get out, have a swing out of his hip flask, then come back as if nothing has happened and resume his lecture from the very word he stopped at.

One of mine drank. He just got more hung over & crabby.