My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
News of the World by Paulette Jiles A
The story is set in Texas of 1870, round about the same time and place as Lonesome Dove, just for context. It also tells of a journey, in this case, one from Wichita Falls in the north of Texas to San Antonio in the south. And if you have read any of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove novels, you will be aware that Texas during this time period was not a safe place. Not safe at all. And this journey is not a safe journey.
Our protagonist, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, is a former soldier. As a young man he fought in the War of 1812, and again, thirty years later, as a captain in the war with Mexico that proceeded the American Civil War by a decade or so. When not a soldier, he was a printer by trade. Now 71 years old, and having lost his printing business after the civil war, he travels from one small town in Texas to another reading stories out of newspapers from far away, for a dime admittance a head.
At the start of the story he is asked by some old wagon driver friends, to take charge of returning a 10 year old girl, Johanna Leonberger, to her aunt and uncle. She had been kidnapped by the Kiowa Indians six years prior, in a raid on her family's homestead. The rest if her family had been killed, and since then she has lived as a Kiowa. The Army had forced the Kiowa's to return these kidnapped children, whether they wanted to be returned or not, and she did not want to be returned. The wagoneers had brought her out of Indian Territory to the north of Texas, but did not want to go any further. They offered the money they'd been paid to deliver her family to Captain Kidd if he would take her with him and deliver her to her relatives himself. He reluctantly agrees.
Johanna, growing up a Kiowa and being ripped away from her Kiowa family and life to be taken by strange people was bitter, sullen, and strange. This was common in many children taken by Indians and then later returned to their birth families. The story recounts Captain Kidd and Johnnna's adventures during the 400 mile journey south as they slowly come to form a bond of trust. One that the Captain knows will be broken once he delivers her to her relatives - if they make it that far.
Not wanting to go into spoiler country, I will leave the story here. It is an adventure filled journey across Texas in a wagon Captain Kidd buys for the journey.
Jiles did not use quotation marks in telling this story, a choice that, I think, does it no service. The lack of quotation marks around conversations is something to be endured while reading it, sometime making it hard to decipher just what is actually being said out loud. I have heard rumors that she's not the only author that does this, but she is the first I've encountered. Still, as you can see from its grade, that quibble did not lessen my enjoyment of the story too much. I have referenced Lonesome Dove, as they are set in the same locale and time-frame. Whereas Lonesome Dove I found to be grim, even nihilistic, News of the World is hopeful and sweet, without compromising on depicting the harsh realities of that time and place. It's not a long book, and gets a high recommendation from me.
I believe that some of the other books Jiles wrote feature some of the characters we encounter in this story. However, (spoiler) having gotten out of Texas alive in this one, I'm in no hurry to go back.
They made a movie of this starring Tom Hanks a few years ago. I watched it and enjoyed it; didn't know it was based on a book. I may check it out.
ReplyDeleteI saw the poster for the movie when I was looking for the cover to use for the post. Neither of the characters looked like the one's in my head, so I don't think I'll be watching it. But then, I'm not a movie sort of fellow, anyway.
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