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We review the latest comedic romp from The Coen Brothers

When Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) descends into her husband's basement office and copies financial records off of his computer, we get a glimpse of a book on the desk, a book that looks to be George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment: 1944-1946: The Kennan-Lukacs Correspondence. This should not surprise us. We have previously heard Oswald Cox (John Malkovich), while struggling to dictate his memoirs, declare: "The principles of George Kennan—a personal hero of mine—were what animated us. In fact they were what had originally inspired me to enter government service."

Burn After Reading is a film about containment and knowledge, or, to put it another way, a tale of wars against chaos. Necessarily, it is a farce.

Yesterday, we got the extremely exciting news that True Grit will be the next #1 on the New York Times bestseller for trade paperback fiction. For a book that's been around since 1968, the "Portis revival" (The New Yorker) is incredibly welcome. While of course we love to see our books sell, we acquired Charles Portis' work long before the Coen Brothers film adaptation was planned--because we think they are truly American classics that deserved to stay in print.

To celebrate, we're giving away a FULL SET of Charles Portis' novels. At this point, everyone's heard of True Grit. But some of us are huge fans of Norwood here, and many consider The Dog of the South to be Portis' finest work. We also thought Gringos and Masters of Atlantis were absolute American classics. So we're giving away ALL FIVE books to one lucky winner. Leave a comment here, on Twitter or on Facebook to win--winners announced tomorrow!

Don't forget that these will all be available as ebooks next week and stay tuned for the announcement of the Academy Awards nominees on January 25--we're keeping our fingers crossed that the great reviews of the film translate into much-deserved Oscar nods! And check out this great book buzz from USA Today about True Grit.

Happy reading!

Mr. Damon, 40, says he was unfamiliar with the 1968 Charles Portis novel that inspired the movie prior to signing on for his role in the Coens' film. "It's a great American classic and I don't know how I missed it up to now," he said. "It's beautifully written and I've been recommending it to everyone. I literally gave it to everyone for Christmas this year."

With $110 million and counting at the box office, the Coen brothers' remake of "True Grit" has become one of the most successful Westerns in Hollywood history, thanks in no small part to the effort of stars Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld and Matt Damon, who plays the comical but steadfast Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf.

Mr. Damon, 40, says he was unfamiliar with the 1968 Charles Portis novel that inspired the movie prior to signing on for his role in the Coens' film. "It's a great American classic and I don't know how I missed it up to now," he said. "It's beautifully written and I've been recommending it to everyone. I literally gave it to everyone for Christmas this year."

Mr. Damon, who lives with his family in New York, spoke with the Journal about "True Grit," the Coen brothers and New York City tax breaks.

Recently you've been working with directors you've made films with before, like Clint Eastwood and Steven Soderbergh. What was it like being directed by the Coens for the first time?

The Coens weren't totally unfamiliar to me because I did a movie ["The Good Old Boys"] in 1994 with Frances [McDormand, who is married to Joel Coen], and Joel was around on set. Also, because I've had so many friends work with them, I had already heard a lot about their process. There wasn't a sussing-out period; I felt very comfortable right away. Part of that though, is that they try very hard to make everyone feel comfortable on-set. I'm hoping I get to keep working with them. We did [an interview with] Charlie Rose about a month ago and as we were leaving, I asked them what they were working on. They said they didn't know, so I said, "Untitled Ma

...to bring you this fantastic piece about TRUE GRIT by Malcolm Jones in Newsweek. Much like how dessert is our favorite part of any meal, the concluding paragraph is our favorite part of this column:

True Grit is one of the great American novels, with two of the greatest characters in our literature and a story worthy of their greatness. It is not just a book you can read over and over. It’s a book you want to read over and over, and each time you’re surprised by how good it is. In every Portis novel, someone makes some kind of journey. His protagonists all have a little Don Quixote in them. They are at odds with the ordinary ways of making do, and they don’t care what the world thinks. In True Grit, these elements are the raw ingredients for one of the finer epic journeys in American literature. The Coen brothers, with their wry, dry-eyed take on all things American, are supremely equipped to bring Portis’s vision to the screen intact. But do yourself two favors: read the novel before you see the movie. You won’t regret it. As for the second favor: do not loan this book out. You’ll never see it again.

True Lit: Movies eclipse their literary sources all the time, which is fine when the book is ‘Jaws.’ But when John Wayne overshadows a master such as Charles Portis, we have a problem.

When Charles Portis published True Grit in 1968, the novel became a critically praised bestseller. Then a year later the movie, starring John Wayne, came out, and after that no one even remembered there was a book. If we know how 14-year-old Mattie Ross hired Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed U.S. marshal with a drinking problem, to hunt down the man who robbed and killed her father, it’s mostly because the movie never stops showing up on television. As a result, most of the pre-release chatter about the new Coen brothers version of True Grit, with Jeff Bridges as Rooster, continually calls it a remake of the John Wayne film. For Portis fans this is nothing short of a crime.

Criminal or not, there’s nothing unique going on here. Any time Hollywood takes a book and turns it into a successful movie, there’s every chance that the book, however good it may be, will be forgotten. For every To Kill a Mockingbird or Gone With the Wind, where the book and the movie are equally respected and neither trumps the other, there are five exam

2 Comments on We depart from our regularly scheduled holiday giveaways, last added: 12/9/2010

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@DogberryPages said, on 12/9/2010 4:17:00 PM

Would love to get this book!

Thanks!

@DogberryPages said, on 12/9/2010 4:19:00 PM

but you're not giving it away :)

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A must-read: this wonderful feature on True Grit from a newspaper columnist who knows the famously publicity-averse author. He joins the rest of us in being excited to see the upcoming Coen Brothers film adaptation!

Coens and Portis, genius on genius
December 5, 2010
The Arkansas News
By John Brummett
Go here to read the article online

All the insider movie rage last week was about the imminent debut at a movie theater near you of the genius Coen brothers’ version of “True Grit.”

It is from the novel by Charles Portis, the lovably reclusive author in Little Rock whom some consider the best American writer of our time or at least the most under-appreciated.

Portis is not much for attention by photograph or interview or tribute or the unsubstantiated superlative. His personal style is as lean and minimalist as some of his writing.

If he warms to you at all, and you cannot be sure of that, it is because you do not bother him or make over him and you do not let it rile you that, when he finally decides to engage, he goes all right-wing.

He loves having been a Marine in Korea. He likes the militaristic field-positioning of old-style football. He hates our litigious society.

Or at least that is what he said. I do not profess actually to know. I only profess to have had the privilege of inhabiting a bar stool next to his a time or two.

I am fairly sure he despises pretense especially when verbose.

Once when I was editor of the Arkansas Times when it was a slick monthly magazine, Portis gave me an epic piece about the Ouachita River that won a national prize. All he asked was that I not change a word unless I talked with him first and not to make a big splash about him on the cover.

I said I would never do such a thing.

That banner above the nameplate — “Charles Portis discovers the Ouachita” — was no big splash. It was medium-sized.

All he ever said to me about writing a novel was that “you gotta have a story.”

I took that to mean it is one thing to write a sentence or a paragraph or an essay, but that it is something else entirely to conceive of a drunken eye-patched U.S. marshal in Fort Smith who heads out for serious character development in the unlikely company of a noble teenage Arkansas hill girl determined to seek justice for the murder of her father by a most-evil outlaw.

That is “True Grit,” and what the Coen brothers — Joel and Ethan — have done with it has now been seen by a few critics, most of them admiring and a few extolling, and will get its theatrical release Dec. 22.

The main criticism has been that the movie, by clinging so closely to the novel and by stressing peculiar and archaic language and slow character development, may not offer the mass appeal of the action-adventure form.

But that is not detraction. It is roaring endorsement.

The Coen brothers are known for homages to great literature and for mastering the distinctive dialogue of places and periods, as

The excitement is building--here in our offices and throughout the country--for the new Coen Brothers film adaptation of TRUE GRIT. We love it! Check out the latest from the fantastic entertainment blog from USA, "Character Approved."

True Grit: A 1968 Novel Rides to Hollywood with Joel and Ethan Coen
Written By Ann Kingman
Nov 26, 2010

One of the most anticipated films of 2010 may also bring new life to a classic work of fiction. True Grit, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, stars Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. It is set to open December 22nd. The Coen brothers are on record as saying that their Character Approved project is not a remake of the 1969 John Wayne film, but that they are basing their movie on the 1968 novel of the same name that was written by Charles Portis.

Speaking about the earlier film, Ethan Coen told Comingsoon.net: "It made very little impression on me, the movie. We subsequently both read the book and the book made a huge impression and I guess that's kind of why we're interested in doing the movie."

"It's not a great movie but it is a great book actually," Joel Coen added.

Portis' book tells the the tale of Mattie Ross, a 14 year-old girl in 1880 Arkansas who leaves home to avenge her father's murder at the hands of farmhand Tom Chaney. Along the way, Mattie convinces mean, one-eyed U.S.Marshal Rooster Cogburn to assist her, and the two form an uneasy partnership as they track down the outlaw gang that Chaney has joined.

The trailer (embedded below) for the reimagined True Grit has recently hit theaters. It will remind many of No Country for Old Men, which the Coen brothers wrote and directed in 2007. The film was a faithful adaptation of the original Cormac McCarthy novel, and the hit western spurred sales of McCarthy's book. I'm willing to bet that True Grit brings the Portis novel to top of the bestseller lists as well.

And of course, Matt Damon's not alone--Portis has long been considered one of the great living American novelists and True Grit is beloved among readers. But it's wonderful to hear people involved with the new Coen Brothers film acknowledge the influence of the original novel in the new adaptation.

"It's just a brilliant adaptation," enthuses Damon. "They change stuff to make a two-hour film out of it, but retain so much of the dialogue, and Charles Portis - who is still alive - has an ear for the way people talk. It's a really special script."

Get excited for December 25...

which hits stores on November 5! You've probably heard about the new movie based on the novel, opening December 25 from the Coen Brothers and starring Jeff Bridges.

Look for our new edition of this Charles Portis classic next week!

Joel and Ethan Coen are working on an adaptation of the classic western True Grit by Charles Portis for their next project. According to Variety, their adaptation of the 1969 picture will hew more closely to the Charles Portis book on which it is based. In the book, a 14-year-old girl, an aging US marshal, and another lawman track her father’s killer through Indian country. While the 1969 version focused on Wayne, the Coens’ version will highlight the girl’s point of view.