Topic: What's your favorite line/quotation from the Short Story??

[HLJG]

He called Jacks number in Childress, something he had done only once before when Alma divorced him and Jack had misunderstood the reason for the call, had driven twelve hundred miles north for nothing........ :\'( :\'(

Annie Proulx wastes no words when she gives you a punch to the heart.The sentence lasts half a minute to read, it depressed me thinking about it for a lot longer than that I can tell you! That's the power of her writing.

I know I keep coming back here, but the truth is I have so many favourites that I just can't help myself. 

Can you believe I missed this, on first reading (last year)??
I took for granted that Jack received a postcard, telling him of Ennis' pending divorce--and that Jack drove up to 'celebrate' and tentatively make plans for their future 'together'.

[HLJG]

Another one-on the mountain..when they really started to feel/miss each other IMHO...

"During the day Ennis looked across a great gulf and sometimes saw Jack, a small dot moving across a high meadow as an insect moves across a tablecloth; Jack, in his dark camp, saw Ennis as night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain. "

Yess--ITA. That leaves such a picture in my mind. And when I watch the movie, for the umpteenth time, I get goosebumps when they are looking across the miles  towards each other.

[proulxfan]

Not the favorite, but a favorite:

 "He [Ennis] was cutting fence now. Trespassing in the shoot-'em zone." 
 
Ten words that forcefully place this story within its socio/cultural context while simultaneously expressing the gravity of the wounds Ennis was about to (re)-open.

Nobody writes like Annie.   

[LuvJackNasty]

Great passage. So much said with so little but that is part of the beauty of this story. 

[Lis]

And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release, the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.

 :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'(

That whole part is my fav. part of the whole ss, when I 1st read it I got a lump in my throat. Its a shame that Ennis could never tell Jack how he felt and how he pushed the thought of building a life together with another man  :\'(

[hpv]

 "Listen. I'm thinkin' tell you what, if you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation, your horses, it'd be some sweet life. Like I said, I'm gettin out a rodeo. "
Owh..Jack's dream

"How much is once in a while?" said Jack. "Once in a while every four fu**in years?"
"No," said Ennis, forbearing to ask whose fault that was. "I goddamn hate it that you're goin a drive away in the mornin and I'm goin back to work. But if you can't fix it you got a stand it," he said. "Shit. I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?"

The way they saying this, is so painful, even to read...

[Lis]

"Listen. I'm thinkin' tell you what, if you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation, your horses, it'd be some sweet life. Like I said, I'm gettin out a rodeo. "
Owh..Jack's dream

"How much is once in a while?" said Jack. "Once in a while every four fu**in years?"
"No," said Ennis, forbearing to ask whose fault that was. "I goddamn hate it that you're goin a drive away in the mornin and I'm goin back to work. But if you can't fix it you got a stand it," he said. "Shit. I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?"

The way they saying this, is so painful, even to read...

I absolutly love that quote!!
These lines are almost identical to the movie but here you really understand that Ennis does have so much feeling for Jack (bold part)

[keren_b]

Yes... one of the things I really wish he'd said in the movie.

[hpv]

Yes... one of the things I really wish he'd said in the movie.

Yeah, it makes some imbalance, because Jack said this kind of line to Ennis: "some time I miss you so much..etc"
But there is non of Ennis feelings until the very end of the movie , except maybe in the confrontation scene ..
I miss this line and the line when Ennis realized that he shouldn't have let Jack go after they returned from the mountain:

" "That summer," said Ennis. "When we split up...I had gut cramps so bad I pulled over and tried to puke ...took me about a year a figure out it was that I shouldn't a let you out a my sights."

it's like Ennis just kept everything inside,he will say nothing to Jack to let him know how much he loved him... 

[Lis]

i know    But at the same time Jack keeps trying 'till pretty much the end to be with him *sighs*

I believe if he didn't keep it all insdie or just said a lil bit more about his feelings for Jack, I don't think Jack would've died  :\'(

[smartestsonia]

They seized each other by the shoulders ,hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then. and easily as the right ket turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together,and hard, Jack's big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis's straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other's toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, little darlin.

IMHO, THE best description of a kiss ever committed to paper.

wow...amazing..its so spontanous and intense...thanks for sharing this

[LauraLovesLedger]

Gee, it's been quite a while since I read it, and I'm a little rusty.  But something that stands out saliently in my mind is from the last passage where, and I paraphrase, it says something along the lines of, "About that time Jack started appearing to him in dreams...sometimes he woke up to a wet pillowcase, sometimes, wet sheets". 

Something about that line drove me crazy with feeling.  God, how I bawled and bawled.

[LauraLovesLedger]

Aaarrggghhh!  I'm going mad for want of recalling!  I seriously need to re-read this ASAP.  Shall do so tonight.

In any case, though, Proulx's story was beautiful, almost as exquisite as the movie, almost...yep, for me, one of those rare instances where the film is tantamount to the book.

[smartestsonia]

Can anybody tell me on which site r the quotes available online or atleast a part of the book or some desprition for me to read???

[LuvJackNasty]

Gee, it's been quite a while since I read it, and I'm a little rusty.  But something that stands out saliently in my mind is from the last passage where, and I paraphrase, it says something along the lines of, "About that time Jack started appearing to him in dreams...sometimes he woke up to a wet pillowcase, sometimes, wet sheets". 

Something about that line drove me crazy with feeling.  God, how I bawled and bawled.

That part gets me too. It's so sad on so many levels but I think what gets me the most is the way Jack appears- young, just the way he looked when they first met.

[babytammy7]

Yeah, Laura that part gets me every time and makes me cry bad....It sends shivers down my spine....The wet sheets and the wet pillow... :\'( :\'( And like Michelle said, what shatters me is the fact that Ennis dreams about that 19 years old Jack, the one he fell in love with 20 years ago in that cold mountain....That little detail is not only revealing and but also tremendously powerful: they never left that mountain....they lived on memories of that summer.

And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release, the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.


Also I'm just in love with the first part of the story....when Ennis is gonna have a very good day just because he dreamt about Jack Twist...God.....it gives me goosebumps....it's so so moving...Ennis based his joy on his dreams about Jack...A dream= a bright sweet day. Damn, how special is that?  :\'( :\'( :\'(
And well, there is a line in that first bit of the story that always makes me cry. I said to Thomas once that it resume what BBM is all about....that old cold time on the mountain branded Ennis and Jack forever....and though their bodies lived in Riverton and Texas, their souls never left Brokeback...That was, like Annie said and Jack thought about the Dozy Embrace, the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives, when they owned the world.

He is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream...(He) lets a panel of the dream slide forward. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.   :\'( :\'( :\'( Oh my...I just ADORE that last line....

Also the whole description of the DE is way beyond the most beautiful thing ever:

They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis’s breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight, and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still usable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, “Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go. Come on, you’re sleepin on your feet like a horse,” and gave Jack a shake, a push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his spurs tremble as he mounted, the words “See you tomorrow,” and the horse’s shuddering snort, grind of hoof on stone.

Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they’d never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.    :\'( :\'(

I saw a vid where you can see this scene in slow motion at the same time you are reading this bit of the SS and hearing sad music...You don't know what it is like see the DE scene while reading it....I even feel like crying now just thinking about it.

And what about the reunion scene?  Precious, moving and stunning writing here:

They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying son of a bitch, son of a bitch; then, and as easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack’s big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, “Little darlin.”  **sigh**

What could he say? "Alma, this is Jack Twist, Jack, my wife Alma." His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack, the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky sweat and a faint sweetness like grass, and with it the rushing cold of the mountain. "Alma," he said, "Jack and me ain't seen each other in four years." As if it were a reason. He was glad the light was dim on the landing but did not turn away from her. Sure enough," said Alma in a low voice. She had seen what she had seen. Behind her in the room lightning lit the window like a white sheet waving and the baby cried. "You got a kid?" said Jack. His shaking hand grazed Ennis's hand, electrical current snapped between them. "Two little girls," Ennis said. "Alma Jr. and Francine. Love them to pieces." Alma's mouth twitched. "I got a boy," said Jack. "Eight months old. Tell you what, I married a cute little old Texas girl down in Childress -- Lureen." From the vibration of the floorboard on which they both stood Ennis could feel how hard Jack was shaking. That's totally stunning...They were shaking so bad, wanting each other something fierce, dying to each other, to kiss, to love. 

The part when Ennis found the shirts is just so hearbreaking and beautiful:

He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.

SSonia give me you mail address and I'll send to you the SS. 

Sorry so much, I almost quoted the whole story, but I LOVE it with all my heart. Annie is a genius!!

[LuvJackNasty]

He is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream...(He) lets a panel of the dream slide forward. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.   :\'( :\'( :\'( Oh my...I just ADORE that last line....

Don't ever be sorry about quoting so much; it deserves to be quoted again and again.

That line- that old cold time... always sets off the tears for me. It was the most perfect time in their lives, the most time they had together, the closest they'd ever have to that sweet life.  :\'(

Of course the DE and Reunion Kiss are just beautifully described by Annie. But the DE is so sad too because of Jack's realization that all of these years had passed and not much had changed.  :\'(

The part when Ennis found the shirts is just so hearbreaking and beautiful:

He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.

That whole thing sets me off too, esp. the last part of the sentence with that being all he had but thank God he had those shirts and a way to hold and touch Jack.  :\'( :\'(

[LauraLovesLedger]

"Little darlin'" is so achingly tender it melts my heart like a hot knife through butter.

[LauraLovesLedger]

So many of my favourite lines have already been mentioned by all of you guys.    But here are some others I like.

-Ennis wrote back, You bet... 

-"I figured you was sore from that punch".  Ennis' euphemism for "sorry".  His remorse really comes through, touchingly, in that terse line.

-"Listen. I'm thinkin,  tell you what, if you  and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf  operation,  your horses, it'd be some sweet life..."  Aw, the wistfulness of it all.  I would have loved that for them, but alas...

-Years  on years they worked their way through the high  meadows and mountain  drainages, horse-packing into the Big Horns, Medicine Bows,  south  end of the Gallatins, Absarokas, Granites, Owl Creeks, the Bridger-Teton  Range, the Freezeouts and the Shirleys, Ferrises and the Rattlesnakes,  Salt  River Range, into the Wind Rivers over and again, the Sierra  Madres, Gros  Ventres, the Washakies, Laramies, but never returning  to Brokeback.

-...so what we  got now is  Brokeback Mountain. Everthing built on that...

-"You got no fu**in idea how  bad it gets. I'm not  you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude  fucks once or twice a year.  You're too much for me, Ennis, you  son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to  quit you."    (Incidentally, I particularly dig "son of a whoreson bitch" heehee   )

-Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs  in winter the  years of things unsaid and now unsayable -- admissions,  declarations, shames,  guilts, fears -- rose around them.  Ennis  stood as if heart-shot, face grey and  deep-lined, grimacing, eyes  screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the  ground on his  knees.      Pure, unvarnished Ennis anguish we have here.


....Dang, I've been busted slacking off at work.        Will have to resume this later, as there are so many more lines... Perhaps I should just copy and paste the whole short story?      

[LauraLovesLedger]

I really should be working right now, but delving into Proulx's world of Wyoming lovers is infinitely more pleasing.

I love this whole passage, but especially the highlighted text.  Proulx's prose is beyond sublime.


What Jack remembered and craved in a  way he could  neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on  Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close,  the silent  embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger.
They had stood that way for a long time in  front of the  fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light,  the shadow of their bodies a  single column against the rock. The  minutes ticked by from the round watch in  Ennis's pocket, from  the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit  through  the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis's breath came slow and  quiet,  he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned  against the steady  heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like  faint electricity and, standing,  he fell into sleep that was not  sleep but something else drowsy and tranced  until Ennis, dredging  up a rusty but still useable phrase from the childhood  time before  his mother died, said, "Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go.  Come on, you're sleepin on your feet like a horse," and gave Jack  a shake, a  push, and went off in the darkness. Jack heard his  spurs tremble as he mounted,  the words "see you tomorrow," and  the horse's shuddering snort, grind of hoof on  stone.
Later,  that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the  single moment  of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult  lives.  Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then  embrace  him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel  that it was Jack he  held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never  got much farther than that. Let be,  let be.

[LauraLovesLedger]

Yikes, almost left out an absolute gem, and my own signature at that!

"... I thought Brokeback  Mountain was around where he grew up. But  knowing Jack, it might  be some pretend place where the bluebirds sing and  there's a whiskey  spring."

[LuvJackNasty]

-"You got no fu**in idea how  bad it gets. I'm not  you. I can't make it on a couple a high-altitude  fucks once or twice a year.  You're too much for me, Ennis, you  son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to  quit you."    (Incidentally, I particularly dig "son of a whoreson bitch" heehee   )

-Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs  in winter the  years of things unsaid and now unsayable -- admissions,  declarations, shames,  guilts, fears -- rose around them.  Ennis  stood as if heart-shot, face grey and  deep-lined, grimacing, eyes  screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the  ground on his  knees.      Pure, unvarnished Ennis anguish we have here.


....Dang, I've been busted slacking off at work.        Will have to resume this later, as there are so many more lines... Perhaps I should just copy and paste the whole short story?      

Great post  I was giggling at your comment about son of a whoreson bitch- that's become a staple in my vocabulary 

And I just love the way she describes their inner turmoil.

And the whole Dozy Embrace passage is my favorite- part of it is in my sig line- that is my favorite. if one can have a favorite with so much to chose from.

[keren_b]

The part when Ennis found the shirts is just so hearbreaking and beautiful:

He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.

This part devastates me every time, it's so powerful and heartbreaking.  :\'(

[LauraLovesLedger]

The huge sadness of the northern  plains rolled down on him. 

[LauraLovesLedger]

...there was another shirt  inside it, the sleeves carefully  worked down inside Jack's sleeves.

..stolen by Jack and hidden here  inside  Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the  other, two in one. He  pressed his face into the fabric and breathed  in slowly through his mouth and  nose, hoping for the faintest  smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of  Jack but there  was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of  Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held  in his hands.


I know this has been quoted myriad times over, but that's because it deserves to be.

[LauraLovesLedger]

"Ennis, what are you  lookin for rootin through them  postcards?" said Linda Higgins,  throwing a sopping brown coffee filter into the  garbage can.
"Scene a Brokeback Mountain."
"Over  in Fremont County?"
"No, north a here."
"I didn't order none a them. Let me get the order  list. They  got it I can get you a hunderd. I got a order some  more cards anyway."
"One's enough," said Ennis.

[hpv]

I know it was posted already....so what...

"Little darlin'".   .........
'Ennis woke in red dawn with his pants around his knees, a top-grade headache, and Jack butted against him; without saying anything about it both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer, sheep be damned.'
His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack, the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky sweat and a faint sweetness like grass, and with it the rushing cold of the mountain.
".... rewarm that old cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong"
"One thing never changed the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by a sense of time flying. Never enough time, never enough"
"During the day Ennis looked across a great gulf and sometimes saw Jack, a small dot moving across a high meadow as an insect moves across a tablecloth; Jack, in his dark camp, saw Ennis as night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain. "
 "There were only the two of them on the mountain flying in the euphoric bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of vehicles on the plain below, suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark hours. They believed themselves invisible..."

''...yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream. '
....rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.
. They were respectful of each other's opinions, each glad to have a companion where none had been expected. Ennis, riding against the wind back to the sheep in the treacherous, drunken light, thought he'd never had such a good time, felt he could paw the white out of the moon

[hpv]

'Ennis knew the sheep were mixed. In a disquieting way everything seemed mixed.'
'The mountain boiled with demonic energy, glazed with flickering broken-cloud light, the wind combed the grass and drew from the damaged krummholz and slit rock a bestial drone. As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong, irreversible fall.'
'...they shook hands, hit each other on the shoulder, then there was forty feet of distance between them and nothing to do but drive away in opposite directions. Within a mile Ennis felt like someone was pulling his guts out hand over hand a yard at a time..'
(the reunion)
A hot jolt scalded Ennis and he was out on the landing pulling the door closed behind him. Jack took the stairs two and two. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack's big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling,  ...and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other's toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and daughters, little darlin.'
"Christ, it got a be all that time a yours ahorseback makes it so goddamn good. We got to talk about this. Swear to god I didn't know we was goin a get into this again -- yeah, I did. Why I'm here. I fu**in knew it. Redlined all the way, couldn't get here fast enough."

[babytammy7]

Oh, so colourful and precious!! Love it, baby. Thank you!! 

[smartestsonia]

Oh, so colourful and precious!! Love it, baby. Thank you!! 

awww....same here...loved it..so beautifully written and emoted