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Mike 's Reviews > The Sisters Brothers
The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick deWitt
by Patrick deWitt
Mike 's review
Mar 25, 11
Recommended for:
D. Pow, Krok, brian, and most of all DK
Read from March 21 to 24, 2011
It's going to be difficult to find a review, or maybe just to write one, without a slew of comparisons. deWitt's novel is not so much a classic western as a classic revisionist western, and--in tone, wandering plot, outsized eccentrics, casually-brutal violence, and essentially humanist foundations--it's in a league with the great Charles Portis' True Grit, with David Milch's much-missed series Deadwood, and the great Altman film McCabe and Mrs. Miller. While this (dull) repetition of comparisons is bad news for reviews, there's a silver lining: SB is no weak sister, but fully deserves a place on the mental shelf with those classics.
deWitt dazzled me with the trippy slipperiness of the plotting. While the overarching quest (two hired killers on the trail of a shady gnomish miscreant) is familiar and somewhat generically fore-ordained, Eli and Charlie's travels--and as importantly narrator Eli's thoughts--never walk a straight line. I was never quite sure what would happen, a few miles or pages down the line, and that's saying something about a bleak oater.
Such sideways wandering and wondering also define deWitt's humor--the book brings the funny--but even more surprisingly his humanism. One strain of the revisionist western sticks our faces in the muck, and reveals behind the mythic archetypes of the classic form a relentless ruthless universe emptied of meaning. But the texts I note above run a different path -- God may be dead, life is surely short and often horrific, and people behave brutishly, bullying and devouring and casually childishly destroying. But in Portis, Milch, Altman, deWitt there's also a real delight in human specificity: the (lovely) vulgar ugliness of bodies and desire, the (surprising) opportunities for empathy bubbling up between the least likely people. Here, Eli is never able to fully see past or through his failings, but he's trying. And there's a grim yet generous compassion in deWitt's depiction of how we treat one another.
It's a great read, a very good novel--and I can't wait to read more from deWitt.
deWitt dazzled me with the trippy slipperiness of the plotting. While the overarching quest (two hired killers on the trail of a shady gnomish miscreant) is familiar and somewhat generically fore-ordained, Eli and Charlie's travels--and as importantly narrator Eli's thoughts--never walk a straight line. I was never quite sure what would happen, a few miles or pages down the line, and that's saying something about a bleak oater.
Such sideways wandering and wondering also define deWitt's humor--the book brings the funny--but even more surprisingly his humanism. One strain of the revisionist western sticks our faces in the muck, and reveals behind the mythic archetypes of the classic form a relentless ruthless universe emptied of meaning. But the texts I note above run a different path -- God may be dead, life is surely short and often horrific, and people behave brutishly, bullying and devouring and casually childishly destroying. But in Portis, Milch, Altman, deWitt there's also a real delight in human specificity: the (lovely) vulgar ugliness of bodies and desire, the (surprising) opportunities for empathy bubbling up between the least likely people. Here, Eli is never able to fully see past or through his failings, but he's trying. And there's a grim yet generous compassion in deWitt's depiction of how we treat one another.
It's a great read, a very good novel--and I can't wait to read more from deWitt.
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Reading Progress
| 03/24/2011 | page 250 |
|
74.0% | "Pretty damn wonderful book." |
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David
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25. März, 05:27 Uhr
Hey, I love Portis. Why didn't you recommend this to me?!
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I wasn't sure if it was just Portis--how do you feel about Altman or westerns? I did consider it--'cause your review of Grit was (typically) great, and I knew you'd gone on the CP kick...
I like westerns, if they're clever and/or colorful and/or unique. I don't like rote travels through a genre for escapism's sake, but this doesn't sound like that at all.
Check out the recommendation emendation. I think you'll like it.... he says cautiously, recognizing what he calls the Anderson-Bergman dissonance so often characterizing our different assessments....
All the referents you namechecked are things that I love, plus "The Sisters Brothers" is an amazing title. Is this out yet, or did you score an advance...?
It is so insanely good. One of the best shows I have ever seen, really. Wild Bill just died. You know, Timothy Olyphant never has to do anything else, and he can suck in everything he makes from now on, but I will always love him for Bulloch. And Ian McShane! Jesus. Has anyone ever uttered "cunt" with such panache?
Oh--yeah. I saw it while it was rolling, and relished the dialogue, layers and byways of which I'm sure passed right by. Swearingen's one of the best television characters, ever. Olyphant is pretty darn good in the new "Justified," too, a show which manages to capture that ol' Elmore Leonard tone just right. It's been a joy seeing the occasional "Deadwood" alum show up, too, particularly W. Earl Brown.
It was amazing how even supporting characters like Brown's "Dan" were so complicated and rich. That set must have been an amazing place when the new script reached the actors' hands.
here's a good western i read recently from two dollar radio you all, mike and david might like ithttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21...
Mike wrote: "SB is no weak sister, but fully deserves a place on the mental shelf with those classics."I love this whole thread! How can one read this book and not be reminded of Seth Bullock? Although the two characters are physically and morally very different, I think it was Eli's speech that brought me back to remembering Deadwood. Is this really how people spoke in the second half of the 19th century?
My first foray into the Western genre (book-wise, at least), and I agree—I thought this was a really great read.
Jason wrote: "Mike wrote: "Is this really how people spoke in the second half of the 19th century?..."David Milch used to claim so--and I've heard some arguments batted about in American Studies that, in a culture more grounded in oral traditions, everyday conversation was more floridly ornamental. (The historian Lawrence Levine had an argument that most Americans could quote whole passages from Shakespeare and the Bibles.)
I'm doing my part to bring this rich history back. In every conversation, I insert a "motherfucker" or seven.
I had to research late 19th century profanity for reasons too weird to get into - plus it's just good to know - and the cussing on Deadwood is deliberately anachronistic. People always have levels of profanity, like we Americans would probably put fuck and the c-bomb (I'm not usually comfortable typing it, see?) at the top, and then on down to goshdarn and poop. It's bodies and sex that have the most oomph for us. The religious stuff - hell, damn - would have been a much more powerful swear in those days. I think, and I may be misquoting, that Milch said he tried using that kind of swearing, and everyone ended up sounding like Yosemite Sam. So he switched to profanity that would actually be profane for the audience.
Ceridwen wrote: "I had to research late 19th century profanity for reasons too weird to get into - plus it's just good to know - and the cussing on Deadwood is deliberately anachronistic. People always have levels ..."I love the image of Yosemite Sam wandering around the brothel, raging at Dan.
Ceridwen wrote: "I think, and I may be misquoting, that Milch said he tried using that kind of swearing, and everyone ended up sounding like Yosemite Sam."I've heard Milch say the same thing--that he used current swears to give the effect to modern audiences that the "old time" swears would have had back in the 1870s. But I'm talking more about the "floridly ornamental" speech that Mike mentioned (great phrase, btw!). I always thought Deadwood-talk was almost like poetry...save the swears.
Actually, Deadwood's one of the few shows I couldn't watch when drunk, it commanded too much of my attention. :) Now I want to read me some Portis!
