The "ABCs of BBM": Round 965! (Rules in first post)

[southendmd]

Annie endeavors to evoke the relationship of the characters to their often harsh landscape.

[Toast]

The weight of these stories keeps piling up, though, as the profusion of life on and around this "empty" country--"intricate sky, flocks of small birds like packs of cards thrown up in the air"--becomes manifest. And those awkward writing decisions of Proulx's begin to look more natural, even sly. Close Range doesn't submerge itself in the lingo of its place as does the grammatically tortured Shipping News: The rangers and cowhands may drawl a bit here, but the narration retains the easy flow and sharp imagery of Accordion Crimes. Still, just as Proulx incorporates frontier fables historical and hysterical, she invites the yarn-spinning traditions of the West to influence her story shapes.

Buried Alive

[memento]

Proulx's prose is raw, spare and filled with grittiness.

[southendmd]

Proulx's prose is raw, spare and filled with characters like Orion Horncrackle.

[Meryl]

Readers of Proulx's prose form their own impressions of her characters, but most come away impressed by the economy and effectiveness of her writing style.

[BBM-Cat]

A common theme throughout many of Proulx's writings is the juxtapositioning of her main characters with their environments.

[Toast]

Synopsis
Annie Proulx's first novel [Postcards] received huge acclaim and marked the launch of an outstanding literary career. 'Proulx has come close to writing "the great American novel" ' New York Times

Postcards is the story of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime on the run from a crime so terrible that it renders him forever incapable of touching a woman. The odyssey begins on a freezing Vermont hillside in 1944 and propels Blood across the American West for 40 years. Denied love and unable to settle, he lives a hundred different lives: mining gold, growing beans, hunting fossils, trapping, prospecting for uranium and ranching. His only contact with his past is through a series of postcards he sends home -- not realising that in his absence disaster has befallen his family, and their deep-rooted connection with the land has been severed with devastating consequences...

Amazon.co.uk

[Fran]

A customer review of Close Range:  Wyoming Stories at Amazon.com:

"These short stories are are tough as the Wyoming land they're set into.  Tales of rough lives at the edge of solitude and despair, unforgiving characters in an unforgiving land, where even rusty abandoned tractors have a soul, and sex comes with no frills attached.  Brokeback Mountain is by no means the only noteworty story in the set, and surely one of the mildest in many ways. 

"Buyer beware: living in this Wyoming is not for the faint of heart.  Reading these lyrically written stories of despair and vast loneliness is not either."

=compliment= BBM-Cat
Awesome "J"! 

=aside= Players
I'm off on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon and other points west.

[southendmd]

Rilla Nooncaster is one of the colorful characters who inhabits Annie's stories.

=aside= Fran
Bon voyage!  Are you going to the new Grand Canyon observation thing?  Don't look down!

[memento]

Sunday, November 27, 2005
Annie Proulx's 'Private Passions'

I live in Norfolk, so I'm always keen to feature authors from Norwich. So it's a great pleasure to write about Annie Proulx's 'Private Passions' as she was born in Norwich - Norwich Connecticut that is.

Let's answer the obvious question first, how is her name pronounced? It is as if it were spelled Proo, the l and x are silent. Despite the high profile achieved by her Pulitzer Prize wining second novel The Shipping News Annie Proulx (right) has actively avoided fitting into the role of best selling author. She started her career as a journalist, and did not begin writing fiction until she was in her 50s. She has shunned the New York literary circuit, and lives on her own in the foothills of the Rockies at Arvada, Wyoming.

In an interview she said about the celebrity status afforded to best-selling authors:

"It's not good for one's view of human nature, that's for sure. You begin to see, when invitations are coming from festivals and colleges to come read (for an hour for a hefty sum of money), that the institutions are head-hunting for trophy writers. Most don't particularly care about your writing or what you're trying to say. You're there as a human object, one that has won a prize. It gives you a very odd, meat-rack kind of sensation."

Annie Proulx's selection of musical 'Private Passions,' selected for the BBC Radio 3 programme of the same name was as refreshingly off-the-wall as her approach to celebrity status. It includes everything from John Adams to a personal favourite of mine, bassist Charlie Haden and guitarist Pat Metheny's Beyond the Missouri Sky. Here are her 'Private Passions':

* Spiritual (from Beyond the Missouri Sky), Charley Haden and Path Metheney Verve 314 537 130-2
* Austin Pitre, ‘Les Flames d’enfer’ (from Lou’isiana Dance Party), Gazelle GCCD 3004
* Francis Poulenc, ‘Hommage à Edith Piaf’ (from 15 Improvisations), Eric Parkin (piano) Chandos CHAN 8847
* Gilmore, ‘Deep Eddy Blues,’ Jimmy Dale Gilmore Hightone Records HCD 8018
* Adams, ‘Toot Nipple’ (from John’s Book of Alleged Dances), Kronos Quartet Nonesuch 7550 79485-2
* ‘Los Illegales’, Valerio Longoria Rounder CD 6024
* Walser/Kronos Quartet, ‘Rose Marie’ (from Down at the Skyvue Drive-in), Don Walser and Kronos Quartet Watermelon Records 31017-2
* Welch, ‘Morphine’ (from Hell Among the Yearlings), Gillian Welch Almo Sounds AMSD 80021
* ‘Jelly Roll Rag’ (from Max Roach Presents The Uptown String Quartet), The Uptown String Quartet Philips 838 358-2

An Overgrown Path 

=aside= BBM-Cat
Very impressive.

=aside= Fran
Enjoy - it will take your breath away and you'll need it if you're hiking.