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BBC World Service Book Club - Annie Proulx's Newest Revelations!

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Front-Ranger:
In order to begin commemorating the publication of this story 11 years ago, I listened to this interview. I found it very interesting although I didn't learn much that was new to me. It was so nice to hear Annie speaking from her home in Wyoming; she and the interviewer were sitting outside and you could occasionally hear a bird singing. She talked about her craft such as mentioning how she often writes the ending first before the rest of the story. She talks about The Shipping News for the first 17 minutes, about how she wanted to write a novel with a happy ending because people criticized her for writing "dark" works. However, the ending that she came up with she defines as "an absence of pain."

The format of the interview is probably not the best for Annie because she was answering questions that had been emailed or texted into the BBC. Several times she reacted negatively to these questions, and it was clear that some of the questioners had not even read the story. For instance, the first few paragraphs of the story (which Annie reads at about the 18 minute mark) made a point of stating that Ennis and Jack were poor kids, not glorified cowboys. But a questionnaire asked whether she was trying to tear down stereotypes by making them cowboys. She points out that she deliberately makes them herd sheep. But many people who haven't studied the West and history don't know that sheepmen and cowboys are like oil and water.

The comment about the plane came up just after Annie talked about having to sell her home in Newfoundland after tour directors started driving vans of tourists past her house and her privacy was destroyed. The interviewer mentioned that she definitely wouldn't have that problem in her new house in Wyoming. Oh, but she does still have that problem, since a nosy person in a private plane has a habit of flying over her house. If that plane should crash, she might feel kind of bad, she allowed. She is a very private person who likes quiet and aloneness, and the glare of noteriety is the botheration that she refers to.

There are many other things said in this interview and it's too bad that just a small part of it is keeping people from listening. I particularly like Annie's answer to the last question, which was "Why do you write?"

retropian:
Reading thru the comments here, it occurred to me that part of the problem, is us. The Fans. we live in a celebrity culture where those who are our "heroes", in film, or theater or literature or music are expected to behave in certain ways. Ways that we the 'fans' feel are becoming to a person we admire, such as appearing to be gracious and grateful for fans adulation. At what point though does that adulation and attention become bothersome and intrusive? It must be subjective to each individual. In Annie Proulx case, writing is a very personal and private act conducted in solitude. That is probably true for most artists, painters, composers and writers. There are many artists in times past that behaved abominably towards others, but their creations transcended their limitations as human beings. This is how I view Annie Proulx. BBM the story is a singular work genius. It's a distillation of everything she has written. It is her penultimate work (at least so far! She may very well write something that eclipses BBM! I don't mean to imply she's reached her pinnacle.). That doesn't mean she is a perfect person. She is an imperfect human being who was able in some mysterious way to create a small story that had enormous reverberations. Reverberations that perhaps were and are beyond her wildest expectations and coping abilities. We should accept that and move on. I'm still looking forward to reading her new work.

injest:

--- Quote from: retropian on October 12, 2008, 04:55:33 am ---Reading thru the comments here, it occurred to me that part of the problem, is us. The Fans. we live in a celebrity culture where those who are our "heroes", in film, or theater or literature or music are expected to behave in certain ways. Ways that we the 'fans' feel are becoming to a person we admire, such as appearing to be gracious and grateful for fans adulation. At what point though does that adulation and attention become bothersome and intrusive? It must be subjective to each individual. In Annie Proulx case, writing is a very personal and private act conducted in solitude. That is probably true for most artists, painters, composers and writers. There are many artists in times past that behaved abominably towards others, but their creations transcended their limitations as human beings. This is how I view Annie Proulx. BBM the story is a singular work genius. It's a distillation of everything she has written. It is her penultimate work. That doesn't mean she is a perfect person. She is an imperfect human being who was able in some mysterious way to create a small story that had enormous reverberations. Reverberations that perhaps were and are beyond her wildest expectations and coping abilities. We should accept that and move on. I'm still looking forward to reading her new work.

--- End quote ---

I am reminded of an actor (cant remember his name but I am SURE that someone will rush in to tell it and correct my memory  ::) ) but after recieving a lifetime honor made the comment that he was sorry he hadnt' died yet...kind of making the joke that how could you give a LIFETIME award to someone who was still producing...

Ms Proulx is still writing and creating....and we are telling her she will never be as good as she was when she wrote BBM and even then she didnt' do TOO good a job, since there are people that insist on rewriting it for her.

I would be angry too.

Front-Ranger:
I think you hit the nail on the head there, Jess.

And maybe AP is trying to prime us for her most recent collection of work which is some of her darkest stuff yet.

BelAir:

--- Quote from: shakestheground on October 05, 2008, 10:33:13 pm ---Thank you Phillip, for posting this interview. It was very moving hearing Proulx read her own words.

When I first heard of her recent comments about BBM I was not surprised. I had heard about the cease and desist letters. That she sees the attention directed at her because of this one story as a curse, well I bet it is. She describes herself as private and her experience with them happened long before the rest of us encountered these two ranch hands. She has written about the power they have in her "Getting Moovied" essay, and I don't presume to know her mind but I know a little bit about my own. In my mind they are cut of the same cloth as Holden Caufield, as Paul Bunyon, as Uncle Remus. A story so compelling it inters humanities psyche and its characters so compelling our minds find them useful in the stories we tell ourselves. Much of this, I think, comes from the movie and not the short story. She even admits this is often then case in said essay.

Proulx gave life to something very powerful, and with any act of creation there is a price to pay. This story has impacted her life in a way very different than our experience with it. How do you prepare for something like that? A private person who for years has scratched out a living writing technical articles, as anonymous as that ranch hand at the Mint Bar, and then one day your name is on the tongues of millions. I think she has done pretty good, I won't judge her. For better or worse she will always be known by the lowest common denominator as the author of "The Gay Cowboy Story". Type cast, with segments of the population passing various judgement upon her, never bothering, or even trying to read her other works. I would be resentful too. (One of the things I thought as the interview started was that they are stuck on those two, BBM and the Shipping News. I think me and Front Ranger are the only two people I know who have read Postcards and that is a shame. A damn shame.)

Bottom line: Annie Proulx is not Brokeback Mountain. Let be.

--- End quote ---

I read Postcards!!!!  (And I thought it was good, too.)

 ;)

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