All good fiction is fun to some extent, but Charles Portis is as fun as anybody I've ever read and probably will ever read. First of all, he's funny. The exchanges between Mattie Ross and Rooster Cogburn made me laugh out loud several times.

"By God!" said he. "A Colt's dragoon! Why, you are no bigger than a corn nubbin! What are you doing with that pistol?"

I said, "It belonged to my father. I intend to kill Tom Chaney with it if the law fails to do so."

"Well, that piece will do the job. If you can find a high stump to rest it on while you take aim and shoot."

Portis was also a master of first person. His adept use of Mattie's voice also makes for many humorous moments.

He put a bridle on Papa's horse Judy and rode out bareback. Darkness swallowed him up. He might have taken the time to saddle the horse or hitched up three spans of mules to a Concord stagecoach and smoked a pipe as it seems no one in that city was after him. He had mistaken the drummers for men.

But the greatest thing about Portis is that beyond his sense of humor he had a true compassion for his characters and real knack for telling a story. Thus True Grit is a complete and utter pleasure to read. Pure pleasure. Along with Dickens, Tolkien, and Donna Tartt, he's the kind of writer I would like to read while recovering from surgery or laid up in bed with a fever.