Reviews for Moon Of Israel

The average rating for Moon Of Israel based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-31 00:00:00 Remi Juillin Charles Portis, born in 1933 in the state of Arkansas, one-time Marine sergeant, is an American author best known for his classic Western novel True Grit. Such a darn good writer who created eccentric characters and comic plots. Part of the American Vintage Contemporaries series published back in the 1980s, this road novel by Charles Portis features 23-year old guitar pluckin' ex-marine Norwood Pratt who lives (if you call this living) way down in the grit of rural East Texas. For me, when it comes to road novels the spice is in what prompts hitting the road in the first place and all the encounters on the trip. This one penned by Sir Charles is a real doozy. Since so much of the color and texture of reading Charles Portis is in his homespun, down-to-Texas-earth language, by way sampling Daddy's literary cookin', here are a few direct quotes from the beginning of the book along with my comments: On The Visitors Norwood Invites To Stay At His House For A Couple Of Days "Sometime during the night the Remleys decampted, taking with them a television set and a 16-gauge Ithaca Featherweight and two towels." --------- You have to love those Remleys, dirt poor husband and wife with a baby, steeling the Red River Texas version of the basic human necessities of food, clothing and shelter: a TV, shotgun and towels. On One Of The Houses Where Norwood Grew Up "Once near Stamps, they lived in a house between a Tasee-Freez stand and a cinder-block holiness church. There had been a colorful poster on the side of the house that said ROYAL AMERICAN SHOWS OCT. 6-12 ARKANSAS LIVESTOCK EXPOSITION LITTLE ROCK. On the other side of the house somebody with a big brush and a can of Sherwin-Williams flat white had painted ACTS 2:38." ---------- Great combination - go see all the horses, cattle, sheep and pigs and an in-your-face reminder of what you need to believe to get your ass into heaven. On A Feature Attraction At The Gas Station Where Norwood Works "On top of the station there was a giant billboard showing a great moon face with eyeglasses. A little cartoon body had been painted on beneath the face, with one hand holding a gas hose and the other extending to the public in a stage gesture, palm outward, something like Porky Pig when he is saying, "That's all folks."" ---------- Such a billboard is a clear, bold expression of American freedom. No wonder communism or socialism could never take hold - imagine living in a land where you can't display your very own version of Porky Pig to sell gas. Impossible! On Norwood Making Home Improvements "He ripped off the imitation brick siding on the house - Norwood's father had called it nigger brick- and slapped two coats of white paint on the walls in three days." ---------- But one example of racism in the book. Racism is so much taken for granted by Norwood and others that, in a way, it isn't even seen as racism; rather, it is viewed as simply the way things are. On Norwood's Sister's New Husband Coming To Live In Norwood's House "Then with absolutely no warning Vernell married a disabled veteran named Bill Bird and brought him home to live in the little house on the highway." --------- Vintage poor people: Vernell does what she damn well pleases and now that she's married, she has her new husband move in, Norwood be damned. On What Drives Norwood To Hit The Road "Norwood did not like the sound of Bill Bird's voice. Bill Bird was originally from some place in Michigan and Norwood found his brisk Yankee vowels offensive. They argued about the bathroom. Bill Bird had made himself a little home in that bathroom. He used all the hot water. He filled up the cabinet with dozens of little bottles with typing on them, crowding Norwood's shaving gear out and onto the windowsill. He used Norwood's blades. He left hairs stuck around in the soap - short, gray, unmistakable Bill Bird hairs. Norwood had built the bathroom, it was his, and the thought of Bill Bird's buttocks sliding around on the bottom of the modern Sears tub was disagreeable." -------- Turns out, not only disagreeable but completely and totally unlivable. Just think of having a Bill Bird plop his Bill Bird buttocks in your house, speaking with an annoying accent, using all your hot water and taking over your bathroom. Again, all these quotes are from the first pages. The story only gets better, including the part where a shyster businessman talks Norwood into driving a car to New York City. When Norwood shows up, the car smells of fresh paint, is towing a second freshly painted car and there is a young lady Norwood is obliged to take with him on his drive. But Norwood is no fool. Although he agrees, once on the road, the whole shyster plan is turned on its head when Norwood senses serious danger. Very entertaining read.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-02-16 00:00:00 Ashley Wilson I agonized over whether to give Norwood three or four stars'which tells me three things: (1) I'm prone to exaggeration; (2) I really need to get a life; and (3) Goodreads should add half-star ratings instead of worrying about retarded mascot contests and adding mostly pointless Facebookish features to the site which inevitably cause that damnable Alice picture/Bertrand Russell quote to show up (again!). Get your act together, Goodreads. This site is too big now to be run out of somebody's garage with a week-old burrito oozing into the ventilation slits on the server. This is the big league, and the big league demands fractional stars'which brings me back to point number two above. Norwood is another triumph of characterization, knee-deep in Texarkana white trash color. These are people who still pepper their speech with 'nigger' and wear outlandish cowboy accoutrements unironically. Norwood Pratt, the protagonist, like other Portis protagonists, is a few increments more thoughtful and broad-minded than his peers, as liable to befriend an overweight showbiz midget and a frizzy New York Jew (which he does) as a huckster in a Stetson trafficking stolen cars or a freeloading redneck army veteran. He also seems to prefer the word Negro. And the only evidence we really need to prove Norwood's moral worth is that he liberates a fortune-telling chicken from its entrepreneurial captivity, motivated by pity for the harried creature. Did I mention the chicken is college-educated and wears a mortarboard? So from this we can surmise that Norwood isn't prejudiced against intellectuals either. I know. It sounds a little 'quirky,' doesn't it? In the disparaging, Little Miss Sunshine sense of the word. Lots of eccentrics crowded into a single phone booth to see what comes of it. Usually that kind of stuff sends me clambering for something dry-as-a-bone'maybe a book on Basque history or some cute thing by Immanuel Kant. But Portis wisely treats all his eccentrics as just run-of-the-mill anybodies, so it doesn't grate on your nerves. I imagine that could be Portis's point'if he in fact has one, other than mere yarnspinning. Depeche Mode said it more succinctly, but also more embarrassingly: 'People are people.' Even if people happen to travel from Texas to New York City, in stolen cars and, later, freight trains, to collect a debt of seventy bucks. If you're as poor and principled as Norwood, it's not an inconsequential matter. And it's not an exceptional thing either. It's just what anybody should or might do. So what's the problem with Norwood? Well, do you know those times when the wine or other libation has been flowing around a dinner table and you're with friends or serviceable acquaintances, and all of a sudden one or another of them starts in on a loooong but entertaining story about some strange or noteworthy occurrence? There are usually a lot of laughs in such stories'abetted by the liquor, maybe'and you have no problem keeping interested, but sometimes when the end arrives, you end up thinking, 'So what?' In other words, why was the story told at all, how was it relevant to any conversation that preceded it, and what in the name of Sweet Jeezus was the point of the whole thing? The point is clearly in just the storytelling for Portis, but I kind of wanted a little something more than just mindless entertainment. Not much, just a little more. The Norwood who finishes up the story, you see, is the same Norwood who starts it. Maybe that's another point of the story? People like these are impervious and indomitable? Perhaps. Or maybe the point was just to amuse me. All the same, I'm still suspicious.