misterfix's review against another edition
3.0
Never really felt connected to any of the characters although I did enjoy his laconic writing style. Entertaining enough but there are many more engaging writers whom I would pass this over for.
sanoslo's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
callumdingley's review against another edition
3.0
With a wide array of unique characters displaying a multitude of cultures and personalities, Gringos was able to create fantastic interactions as well as enhance some wonderfully interesting plot points. While this works for some of the book, I found that too many characters often became confusing and unfocused. The book was difficult to follow sometimes and I confused both minor and major characters for each other multiple times throughout. Maybe this says more about my reading ability, but it definitely impacted the flow of the book. Overall, I enjoyed the wonderfully described and interesting singular moments of the story, but it was difficult to get through due to a lack of cohesion.
thedocument's review against another edition
4.0
A hilarious mix of Joseph Heller absurdity and Coen Brothers farce. As always, Portis is effortlessly funny and fills his story with wonderfully eccentric characters: a man who has "the opposite of paranoia", a guy who was a communist in Spain and a fascist in Mexico, a doctor whose mantra, "well, everything is a cube", is not understood by a single person. It's hard to review Gringos without simply recounting my favourite lines.
kingkong's review against another edition
4.0
I like that Doc wanted to die out there on a dig with a little statue in his mouth
sohnesorge's review against another edition
4.0
Spare, sparkling prose about crazy American expats living in Mexico, tinged with Portis's wonderful dryly clever humour.
rebus's review
4.0
Portis had a small body of work because he made his real money in the awful TV and film business, but his 5 novels are still fairly inconsistent.
This ranks as slightly better than the just very good Dog of the South and not nearly as good as the masterpiece he penned in True Grit.
It's well worth the read, even if it isn't flat out amazing.
This ranks as slightly better than the just very good Dog of the South and not nearly as good as the masterpiece he penned in True Grit.
It's well worth the read, even if it isn't flat out amazing.
vivastory's review against another edition
4.0
Portis final book tells of expatriate Jimmy Burns as he takes on odd jobs in Mexico. Jimmy, with his green trousers, is a laidback character who is frequently pulled into strange & occasionally dangerous situations. Such is the case when he has to track down the missing person who is obsessed with UFO sightings in Mexico. I often enjoy these sort of narratives, yet I need to sit with this book for a bit to really gather my thoughts. This is a book where one of the great appeals can also be a weakness. It is packed with incidents & I would sometimes have to backtrack & read over a passage if my mind was wandering. On top of being full of details, there was little room for reflection. I know that this was due to this being more of a novel about the culture that Portis portrayed: full of adrift hippies, conspiracy theorists, & citizens living on the margins. At times this read like a modern day beat novel but with less Kerouacian enthusiasm & more of the absurd humor of Vonnegut. Although I enjoyed this one, it didn't quite work as well for me as the other 2 books by Portis that I have read, both of which are IMO masterpieces (True Grit & Masters of Atlantis). Sadly, this only leaves 2 unread books pub. by Portis. The last twenty-nine years of his life we did not see a single book published. What a loss.
rosseroo's review
2.0
I picked this up largely because Portis's earlier book True Grit is one of the best books I've read in the last twenty years, but also because the plot description sounded so crazy. The story follows Jimmy, a former looter of Mayan archaeological sites, now living the expatriate life in the Yucatan Peninsula, making ends meet hauling goods around, doing small deals, and sometimes running down missing Americans.
I couldn't quite work out when the book is supposed to be set, but it felt roughly like the mid-1970s to early '80s or thereabouts. The entire vibe reminded me of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, as Jimmy stumbles into an array of strange situations, with a cast of wildly colorful characters. There's a half-arsed trek into the jungle, a group of dangerous drifters, a missing teenager, and some crackpots who swear by tall tales of aliens and UFOs visiting the Mayans.
There are lot of threads, a lot of characters, and a lot of fun language -- but it never really holds together. The stakes just aren't very clear, and while Jimmy is to uneven a character to really carry the wacky plotting. I kind of wonder if this is a book that just hasn't aged very well over the 25 years since it was published.
I couldn't quite work out when the book is supposed to be set, but it felt roughly like the mid-1970s to early '80s or thereabouts. The entire vibe reminded me of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice, as Jimmy stumbles into an array of strange situations, with a cast of wildly colorful characters. There's a half-arsed trek into the jungle, a group of dangerous drifters, a missing teenager, and some crackpots who swear by tall tales of aliens and UFOs visiting the Mayans.
There are lot of threads, a lot of characters, and a lot of fun language -- but it never really holds together. The stakes just aren't very clear, and while Jimmy is to uneven a character to really carry the wacky plotting. I kind of wonder if this is a book that just hasn't aged very well over the 25 years since it was published.