This week I read Norwood, the first novel by Charles Portis. It was made into a film in 1970 starring Glen Campbell and Kim Darby. I haven’t seen the film. The novel, like Dog of the South, which I wrote about last week, is a quest story. Norwood Pratt is discharged from the Marines to look after his sister. He wants to be a country singer (although he doesn’t spend much time playing music) and he’s concerned about a $70 debt owed him by a Marine buddy. Norwood seems to be a good natured fellow, somewhat naiive, with his own sense of what’s right and wrong.

Norwood meets Grady Fring The Kredit King and agrees to deliver a pair of cars (likely stolen) and a woman named Yvonne to New York. Bad things happen and he winds up hopping a freight, getting his boots stolen, meeting the world’s smallest perfect fat man, and subsequently meeting a woman named Rita Lee on a bus. They decide to get married. The book isn’t written quite as minimally as this, but it’s written in a very minimal, very concise style.

Norwood lives in the moment. He sets off with a vague notion of what he wants to do and deals with life as it comes along. Stuff just happens, little adventures, life in America, and Norwood moves along from one adventure to another. I found this novel to be starker than Dog of the South, and in that way somewhat disarming. Norwood likes home, but isn’t so happy about the guy his sister takes up with, and he seems perfectly fine about picking up and traveling. He’s a simple, restless guy from Arkansas who goes off to New York to retrieve a $70 debt. The characters he meets along the way are unique and each have their own stories.

I’m going to read the rest of Portis’ novels in the coming weeks. I’ll pass on the movie version of Norwood for now, though.