I admired this. But didn't like it. Beautifully written with tremendous sense of time and place - Thalia 1954, with its cattle, small bars, pool rooms, back verandahs. But Hud here is so loathsome - he rapes the housekeeper who is now black, and kills the grandad. The film softened him a lot. The black housekeeper is given phoentic dialogue which dehumanises her - McMurtry was never great with POC characters.
I was interested to read about character Hermy, bragging about the big smoke of Oklahoma City - John Ashley played that role in the film and was cut out. You can see Ashley in the part esp as Ashley was an Okie.
This is more from the POV of the young guy, Hud comes in and out. Hud is so loathsome the book is unpleasant to read at times though short. For me, anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment