Topic: "Brokeback Mountain" as the grand finale of Close Range

[proulxfan]

Like many others here-I assume-I saw the BBM film before reading the short story, and then I read the rest of the stories in the Close Range collection.

As a result, one experience I will never be able to have is that of a "cold" reading of Close Range, -meaning no prior knowlege of the film or short story-, appreciating the dark humor and sense of futility and foreboding that permeates many of the stories, and then coming unawares smack up against BBM. It seems to me that this story stands out from those preceding it in the collection, but I can't really know how true that is because of bias resulting from how I came to know each of them.

So I am hoping that someone who reads these threads might have had that experience and be willing to share what it was like, so I can experience it vicariously.

Any volunteers?

[tpe]

proulxfan, I read the earlier version of BBM in the New Yorker prior to reading Close Range.  And I read most of the stories in Close Range a few months before the movie.

I must say that when I read close range, I tried to read it in the order of the publ;ished stories.  And I must admit that I did get a feeling in the end that BBM was intentionally placed in the end as a kind of culmination.

I had wondered whether Proulx deliberately built the collection arround BBM.  It seemed to me like she did.  There was certainly an unmistakable progression in the stories, even as she moduulated starkness and brutality with a beauty that conly the unforgiving language can conjure.

I have always thought that the story before BBM -- 50 Miles to the Gas Pump (this is the title, no?) was intentionally placed there as a kind of staccato before the final brooding sweep of BBM.  But I had always thought that the stories prior to BBM in a way prepared the way for the culmination. 

This is by way of starting the discussion here...

[chameau]

Like many others here-I assume-I saw the BBM film before reading the short story, and then I read the rest of the stories in the Close Range collection.

This is exactly my experience, I saw the movie, then bought Story to Screenplay and Close Range was offered to me from a friend here on the forum afterwards.  I have to read again Close Range, it's not easy to read... I was told it's not easy even for native English readers, I'm ain't English

I for sure appreciated Annie Proulx minimalist prose and I'm looking now for some more books from her.  BTW, I read and loved The Shipping News but that's another thread.

[proulxfan]

tpe,

Thanks, that is a better way to allow more people to participate with their perspectives. Sorry, I didn't mean to make it so narrow...but I still hope that there is somebody out there who came upon BBM while still a virgin! 

cham,

You're absolutely right. Proulx's fiction is so loaded with local dialect and esoteric words and phrases that I sometimes need a dictionary, and even then the dialect stuff often goes right over my head. 

But her stuff definitely rewards the extra effort.

[jackster]

. . . I still hope that there is somebody out there who came upon BBM while still a virgin!

you may be a sinner, but I ain’t had the opportunity.

(sorry couldn’t resist)

Went by the same progression here:  BBM to SS+SP to Close Range. Had the same reaction, BBM stood out, but also had that image of this beautiful (visual) love story in my head. After reading CR (1st other work by Proulx I read) I did see the SS in a different light. I appreciated the real life in Annies words in way I did not prior to reading CR. And wondered if I would’ve had the same emotional reaction to the movie if it was as salt of the earth and gritty as her story (say more like Midnight Cowboy).

ditto Cham - it ain’t Anglish, it’s westAmericun to heart. What a great ear she has to have been able to pick up this as one who grew up a New Englander.

[tpe]

Wonderful posts, everyone!

I just wanted to also point out something that had struck me upon first reading CR.  Remember that I had read CR after I read the early version of BBM and a few months before the film came out.

I realized that the biggest differences between the version of BBM in the New Yorker and the BBM in Close Range are the dream sequences that beign and end the latter.

Now, in many of the stories in CR, there is an element similar to magical realism, no?  I had wondered if the dream sequences were added to BBM to tie it with the overall feel of the collection.  After all, there is something unearthly about those sequences, most especially the last one...

[LuvJackNasty]

I saw the movie, then read the SS to SP and then bought Close Range. But I have remiss in not reading all of CR. I naturally re-read BBM, and I read the first one and according to my bookmark I am in "The Mud Below". I should make more of an effort to sit down and read the other stories in there.

[proulxfan]

tpe,

I read somewhere that the prologue/dream section was cut out by the editorial staff at the NYer for some stylistic reason I can't recall at present. It may have been space limitations...

LJN,

If you have the time, would love to get your reaction to "The Mud Below". That was my second favorite story in CR. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Diamond Feltz, and feel like he could be kin to Jack Twist.

[tpe]

tpe,

I read somewhere that the prologue/dream section was cut out by the editorial staff at the NYer for some stylistic reason I can't recall at present. It may have been space limitations...

proulxfan, I really don't know the history behind the dream sequences -- I had always assumed that these were added later, as a kind of prologue and epilogue to the heart of the story. 

If what you say is true, then these sequences were there from the beginning, and are therefore part of Proulx's original vision.  I hope someone would ask her about this... 

[proulxfan]

tpe,

While I lack specific evidence to point towards to allow me to testify under oath, I do believe that the prologue dream section was part of the original version of the story, and was edited out by the NY'er.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!

[Lis]

"If you have the time, would love to get your reaction to "The Mud Below". That was my second favorite story in CR. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Diamond Feltz, and feel like he could be kin to Jack Twist."

proulxfan, I absolutly adorded The Mud Below, it was my 2nd favorite of her stort stories. Although, I never got what his mother meant by "Everything!" (at the argument with his mother part and stated at the end to). Do you get it a lil bit more than I do?? Help me xD 

[proulxfan]

"If you have the time, would love to get your reaction to "The Mud Below". That was my second favorite story in CR. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Diamond Feltz, and feel like he could be kin to Jack Twist."

proulxfan, I absolutly adorded The Mud Below, it was my 2nd favorite of her stort stories. Although, I never got what his mother meant by "Everything!" (at the argument with his mother part and stated at the end to). Do you get it a lil bit more than I do?? Help me xD 

lil_dwarf_611

That's a very good question, and I don't have a ready answer. It seems to me she might, in her overwrought state, be confusing Diamond, her elder son, with her former husband. I believe the story suggests Diamond was in some ways similar to him. But given the question as to who Diamond's real father was, maybe not...
I'll have to think about this one.

[Lis]

same here, idk...mayb then I have the time I'll skimm through it again and c if theres something I missed
But I really liked it and it also gave more about the Rodeo and I'm thankful that Jackin BBM got out while he can, i was so worried reading when Diamond got hurt 

[Lis]

**Jack in