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Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond => Brokeback Mountain Open Forum => Topic started by: Brown Eyes on June 06, 2006, 12:21:47 am

Title: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Brown Eyes on June 06, 2006, 12:21:47 am
I'll start with a line that always brings a tear for me...

"The huge sadness of the northern plains rolled down on him."
 :'(
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: belbbmfan on June 06, 2006, 03:29:38 pm
Quote from: atz75 on June 06, 2006, 12:21:47 am
I'll start with a line that always brings a tear for me...

"The huge sadness of the northern plains rolled down on him."
 :'(

Sad, indeed. Maybe I can balance that with... euhh my signature line: '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'
The sheer happiness of his time with Jack, how powerful he feels. Their love really is a force of nature. What a difference to the Ennis before he met Jack 'stoic, a boy with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation'.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: nakymaton on June 06, 2006, 03:39:13 pm
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 a night fire, a red spark on the huge mass of black mountain.

The loneliness and longing before the connection...
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: gattaca on June 06, 2006, 05:08:39 pm
It's fair to say that I have more than one favorite - but that which comes to my mind right away are those lines which evoke some private, personal sadness (to me):

Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: JennyC on June 06, 2006, 05:19:00 pm
Quote from: atz75 on June 06, 2006, 12:21:47 am
I'll start with a line that always brings a tear for me...

"The huge sadness of the northern plains rolled down on him."
 :'(

Amanda,

That line has the same effect on me  :'(.  It's one of my favorites.  And I always wonder why "northern plains".  Is it because the cold and wildness of the northerm plains?  There used to be a thread on IMDB PT discussing the meanings of some lines in the short story. I loved that thread.

As to my favorite, I have many.  You have covered some of them so far.  I will start with:
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.
 
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Mikaela on June 06, 2006, 05:35:17 pm
All the ones mentioned belong to my favourites - I was pondering which one to choose but I better get a move on here! I'll go with this one, more down-to-earth, less lyrical than the previous ones, but the only one that I really, really miss in the otherwise perfect movie:

That's one of the two things I need right now.

Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: brokeback-fan on June 06, 2006, 07:17:44 pm
Yes, there are so many wonderful lines in this story.  One of my favorites and one that has so many meanings including religious iconography:

"...because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid the ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded."


Annie Proulx is a literary genius!!  :) Read her books.  They are treasures.

Thank you, Annie.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: fernly on June 06, 2006, 07:28:34 pm
All of the ones you've chosen already,
and this one -
(I always love juxtaposed adjectives that you'd never think of together, until an author like Annie Proulx writes them that way)

"There were only the two of them on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air"
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Brown Eyes on June 06, 2006, 08:46:46 pm
Quote from: JennyC on June 06, 2006, 05:19:00 pm
I always wonder why "northern plains".  Is it because the cold and wildness of the northerm plains?  There used to be a thread on IMDB PT discussing the meanings of some lines in the short story. I loved that thread.

Well, for me the idea of the "northern plains" just suggests vast loneliness.  It seems to me to be characterized by large expanses of open space where a person could feel very tiny and isolated.  Also plains are the opposite of mountains... so Ennis here is feeling oppressed by plains (flat land) as opposed to his ideal place, a mountain (i.e. Brokeback mountain, to which he can never return... not even to return Jack's ashes). Since this line comes following Jack's death, well, it just makes me weep for Ennis.

OK, this is more than a "line" but it always blows me away.  Talk about the power of nature as an active component/ symbol in the relationship. 

"The next week Joe Aguirre sent word to bring them down - another, bigger storm was moving in from the Pacific - and they packed in the game and moved off the mountain with the sheep, stones rolling at their heels, purple clouds crowding in from the west and the metal smell of coming snow pressing them on.  The mountain boiled with demonic energy, glazed with flickering broken-cloud light, the wind combed the grass and drew from the damaged krummholz and silt rock a bestial drone.  As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong irreversible fall."


I love that the wind (the symbol many of us see as Jack) and earth/ stone (the symbol many of us think of as Ennis) are so significant here... and that the wind makes the stones sing!
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: serious crayons on June 07, 2006, 01:10:32 pm
Quote from: atz75 on June 06, 2006, 08:46:46 pm
" As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong irreversible fall."

Amanda, you took the words right out of my fingers. This line is a good description of the way Ennis must have felt -- and you can really see it in that scene in the movie!
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Brown Eyes on June 07, 2006, 07:37:55 pm
Quote from: goadra on June 07, 2006, 04:23:02 pm
That pretty much sums up how they saw each other their whole lives. In order to get by, Ennis reduced Jack to a small dot in his consciousness. Ennis was the fire that drew Jack back to the mountains year after year.

Wow, that's a really interesting way to think about this metaphor.  Yes, even on Brokeback they spend an awful lot of time separated and either coming or going from each other.  I feel like a large percentage of the interactions we see between them on Brokeback have to do with them either greeting one another or saying good bye as they head to the sheep. Sure, patterns certainly were established early on.

Here's my quote for the day...

- "... they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news.  Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved."

Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: bbm_stitchbuffyfan on June 08, 2006, 12:20:25 am
Quote
All the ones mentioned belong to my favourites - I was pondering which one to choose but I better get a move on here! I'll go with this one, more down-to-earth, less lyrical than the previous ones, but the only one that I really, really miss in the otherwise perfect movie:

That's one of the two things I need right now.

I'm positive Jack said that in the movie. He had just taken a swig from the whiskey flask. I remember seeing him say that...
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: redilirvi on June 08, 2006, 03:32:05 pm
I've been a lurker and occasional poster on IMDB, but this is my first post on BetterMost.

Here are two lines from the prologue to the short story. The first one gives me a warm, comfortable feeling:

...yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.

The second one always brings tears to my eyes, even if I just think about it:

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.

P.S. to Stitchbuffyfan: Jack does not say "That's one of the two things I need right now" in the movie. I wish he did, because it expresses that they continued their physical, sexual relationship for years.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: nakymaton on June 08, 2006, 04:04:54 pm
I love those two lines, too, Noguchi_LM. I think that was where the story hooked me. Because that's the way it feels to wake up thinking about something and to try to hold onto it. And the implications...

(Welcome. :) )
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: redilirvi on June 08, 2006, 06:03:30 pm
Thanks for the welcome, Nakymaton.

I've had similar sensations when I awake...I sometimes lie in bed and think about my late partner, and just remembering him, his smile, our experiences together, gives me a sense of calm, knowing that I had someone who loved me.

Jack
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: whiteoutofthemoon on June 10, 2006, 12:13:35 am
The line in my signature below.   Says so many things about their relationship, that it definitely was not just built on lust.    I think it's actually something that a lot of people feel and experience....not just an issue of love, but of friendship.   You ever spend quality time, just with a good friend, male or female, and had just the best conversation, and you didn't want that conversation to end?   And when you leave, you just feel great, because you know you have this true friend, someone you trust as much as your own sibling, and because you have this friend, you feel like you can conquer the world?  This was so much more profound for Ennis, knowing that he has led a lonely and harsh upbringing, parents died at a young age, really no close friends at all, and finding a new friend when he leasts expects it.   It was before the affair started and hence a really pure period of true friendship...I really dig that.     the movie was awesome, but this is one thing I wish Ang Lee could have expounded upon...that is, showed them in this scene having this really long conversation where they each opened up, and saw how much each one earned the other's trust and respect.   The one scene we did get was the one where ennis opens up about his parents.....great scene, but wish it could have been longer.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: alec716 on June 11, 2006, 05:56:14 pm
As I am sure happens with many other devotees, my favorite line changes occasionally.  Lately, it's been ...

[i]"They were no longer young men with all of it before them."[/i]

For me, this emphasizes the duration of their mutual longing, the length of their individual suffering in their separate lives, that their trips had truly become a way of life for them, and the idea that Ennis had better get himself together sooner rather than later if they were going to be able to live out their love on a more satisfying basis.  Little did they know how little time they actually had left together at that point.  This line also emphasizes for the the absolute waste of potential happiness that they experienced while Jack was still alive.  (Sigh.)
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: beeple on June 11, 2006, 06:15:07 pm
... it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong...

and then it all begins..

Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Brown Eyes on June 11, 2006, 08:49:46 pm
It's so exciting to see new post-ers showing up on this thread!  Welcome everyone.


alec716, you're right almost every time I think about the story my favorite lines shift around.  So, today I'll post another one of my favorite fun lines and one of my favorite sad lines (lately I've been gravitating to the sad moments a lot).

I LOVE this motel moment... 
[Ennis to Jack] " 'S***. I been lookin at people on the street.  This happen to other people?  What the hell do they do?'   'It don't happen in Wyomin and if it does I don't know what they do, maybe go to Denver,' said Jack..."
 :D

And, this has to be one of the most amazing ways to end a story ever...
"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."
 
Whenever I watch the movie and hear Ennis say "if you can't fix it you've got to stand it" I feel like I'm listening to Ennis impose this as a life sentence on himself. 
 :'(
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: alec716 on June 11, 2006, 09:14:20 pm
Quote from: atz75 on June 11, 2006, 08:49:46 pm
"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."

What are people's interpretations of this line?  One of my sadder thoughts in this regard (far be it from me to keep my misery voice to myself!  :)) is that pehaps Ennis "knew" (or assumed) that he would never have let his life with Jack escalate to the level of living together, but that he tried to believe that he would have done so if Jack had lived.

If this is OT and belongs elsewhere, just let me know.  thanks.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: gattaca on June 11, 2006, 11:15:41 pm
Quote from: alec716 on June 11, 2006, 09:14:20 pm
"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."
What are people's interpretations of this line?

I think the key to a possible interpretation lies a couple of pages earlier. In the story, John Twist tells Ennis that, "He's a goin a split up with his wife and come back here," (bringing Randall with him). "So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."

So now he knows it had been the tire iron. Annie seems to confirm here that Jack did die violently, and not by Lureen's contrived story over the phone.

So, I think Ennis knows Jack was murdered, but wants to believe otherwise.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: gattaca on June 11, 2006, 11:20:28 pm
I have another favorite line (I have quite a few, actually) - this is near the beginning of the story, where Annie gifts the reader with one of her sparse expositions describing Ennis's physical appearance:

"...balanced a small torso on long, caliper legs, possessed a muscular and supple body made for the horse and for fighting."

...and made for a few other things also, I don't doubt.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: alec716 on June 11, 2006, 11:26:42 pm
Quote from: gattaca on June 11, 2006, 11:15:41 pm
I think the key to a possible interpretation lies a couple of pages earlier. In the story, John Twist tells Ennis that, "He's a goin a split up with his wife and come back here," (bringing Randall with him). "So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."

So now he knows it had been the tire iron. Annie seems to confirm here that Jack did die violently, and not by Lureen's contrived story over the phone.

So, I think Ennis knows Jack was murdered, but wants to believe otherwise.

Excellent idea.  I had not thought much about that angle.  Thanks for pulling the thoughts together. 
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Catglith on June 14, 2006, 08:19:31 am
Quote from: atz75 on June 06, 2006, 12:21:47 am
I'll start with a line that always brings a tear for me...

"The huge sadness of the northern plains rolled down on him."
 :'(

Every line towards the end of the book just crushes me, but this line haunted me, So simple, unsentimental, hones and ultimately devastating because of this.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: serious crayons on June 14, 2006, 10:08:40 am
So many of the lines people have quoted are sad ones.  :'(  Here's one that's sad but also hints of happiness, and I wish it were better dramatized in the movie:

One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings  :-* was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.

 :-\
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Shakesthecoffecan on June 14, 2006, 04:26:00 pm
"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."

To see Ennis Del Mar happy, is to be happy.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: saucycobblers on June 14, 2006, 08:17:11 pm
His shaking hand grazed Ennis's hand, and electrical current snapped between them.

That whole scene is amazing, even more so in the book than in the film I think. There are so many things going on at the same time - the mundane pleasantries, the two men almost on the point of losing control, Alma's confusion and rising panic, the baby crying in the background... OMG i just hold my breath every time i read it.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: twistedude on July 05, 2006, 11:36:29 am
All the posted lines are ...I haven't the words.

But "swung from the feck, and laid the miniestering angel out among the wild columbine, wings folded," is I guess my favorite...and oddly enough, it's the one place I laugh out loud in the movie, for a differenrt reason: it is SO Ennis.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Jeff Wrangler on July 05, 2006, 12:12:58 pm
So many wonderful lines, so little time. ...

Of course, the only one I can be sure to quote correctly without the text in front of me is:

"Gun's goin' off."

 ;D
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: serious crayons on July 05, 2006, 02:16:33 pm
Quote from: saucycobblers on June 14, 2006, 08:17:11 pm
His shaking hand grazed Ennis's hand, and electrical current snapped between them.

I always feel like I can just about see that happening in the film. At least I certainly can feel it!
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Luvlylittlewing on July 11, 2006, 10:00:38 pm
One of my favorite lines, a line that always haunts me is,

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.

Just imagine Ennis responding to his lover's smell!  Even after 4 years he  remembers the special scent of the person he loves above all others. 

And with it the rushing cold of the mountain..

Brings sort of a mystical quality to it all.  You can almost feel the cold - it must have chilled Ennis to the bone!  Wonderful!
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Amber on July 12, 2006, 12:32:55 am
A lot of the ones mentioned definitely make my list - but I have a few more as well.

"Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved." - I think that line just speaks volumes about their relationship at the end.  I wish they could have begun and resolved things but it wasn't meant to be.  Painful.

The other is one from my signature.  I'd include the entire passage but it's rather long - I will however give a little more text.

"... and still they clenched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg toghether, 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."  I can just see Ennis whispering this to Jack ... I'm kind of disappointed they didn't include this in the movie, but I also see why they did not.  It just wouldn't have fit.  Still, it's one of my favorite parts of the book.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: mvansand76 on July 12, 2006, 09:05:35 am
As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong irreversible fall."


I love that line, it shows the meaning of falling in love, you can't control it...
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: nakymaton on October 13, 2006, 10:59:18 am
Bump in celebration of the anniversary of the publication of the short story!

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.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Front-Ranger on October 13, 2006, 01:14:38 pm
Thanks for the bump, Mel! Among many others, I like, "...nothing he'd done before but no instruction manual needed." It's a very guy-way to describe the action!!
Title: Happy Ninth Brokeback
Post by: Toast on October 13, 2006, 03:43:47 pm
The New Yorker Magazine
(http://www.cartoonbank.com/assets/2/50920_l.jpg)
Just a note to remind everyone that it was on October 13, 1997
NINE YEARS AGO
that Annie Proulx saw the publication of
Brokeback Mountain
in this edition of The New Yorker Magazine.

since then it has appeared in their magazine as
a movie review,
a spoken word recording by Suzy Amis
and grist for their cartoons
(http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/assets/1/121740_m.gif)
What if I dont want to be Jack or Ennis.


Thank You Annie and The  New Yorker
for getting Brokeback off to a start.

Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: RebelWithASmile on October 13, 2006, 08:33:29 pm
I love the ending when Proulx says Jack started to appear in Ennis's dreams. Its so sad, and i always cry when i read it. I also, of course love the whole 'sexless embrace' scene, she really out did anything i have ever read with that scene alone! She is very good.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Rutella on October 14, 2006, 12:07:38 pm
I have so many favourite lines I can't quote them all (and most of them have been written already) but the prologue hits me so hard, because the first paragraph is full of detail forming this amazing picture of Ennis' desolate life but then finishes with "but he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream". I think this is one of the best beginnings to a story ever because it sums up Ennis, and Ennis and Jack's relationship, and perfectly sets up the story. Sometimes I just read that part before going to sleep and then I too dream of J&E.

Another favourite is from when Ennis finds the shirts:

"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 love the alliteration here with the smoke, sage and best of all the 'salty sweet stink' and I adore the reference to the 'imagined power' and the way this links with Jack's comment that all they've got is Brokeback. And there in lies the tragedy. 
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: opinionista on October 15, 2006, 03:53:22 pm
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.

This is my favorite line. I find it beautiful and symbolic.
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: Lynne on December 17, 2006, 04:16:27 am
Hey all you new members!  Post about your favorite lines here!

There's not a bad line, IMO, but one I like is from the prologue:

'...yet 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.'
Title: Re: Favorite lines from Proulx's story- an Ode to TOB
Post by: redilirvi on December 17, 2006, 07:03:25 am
Quote from: Lynne on December 17, 2006, 04:16:27 am
'...yet 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.'

Lynne, this passage always brings tears to my eyes...I can't even think about it without crying. Brokeback is a tragic yet beautiful story. No other movie or work of fiction has touched me so deeply, although Yossi & Jagger comes close. I think Brokeback Mountain is a consummate work of art.