I will talk only about Brokeback Mountain. Annie’s style is of clipped sentences, disjointed words that produce a remarkable semblance of intense empathy for her characters. The sexual content of this story is highly sensual and seem terrifyingly real as if the scenes leap out from the pages of the book. She is a highly stylized writer and commands a unique mastery over the usage of language that in a way creates a league of which she is the sole owner. Her finely etched characters seem so absolutely real that you feel a surge of pain when Jack Twist dies.
She exhibits explosive finesse towards the end as the main protagonist Ennis enters a twilight zone, bereft of friends, family and most importantly his soul mate Jack Twist. Ennis is poor and living in abject poverty, pining for his love and pining so hard that you as a reader almost lament the death of Jack Twist. You’re assured that it is the end of the line for Ennis. A hopeless existence, a mere pretence of a life! Now, he dreams about Jack and wakes up crying or having ejaculated in sleep. This is real melodrama; the writer gifts Ennis’s hopelessness to you. You’re forced to introspect your own life and come up with parallels, for instance, I still dream of not doing well in my exams and waking up thinking I have failed.
This is a remarkable gift that this writer possesses for this is not a story but an almost unwanted intrusion into your own life. A chance to revise your own unfulfilled dreams, little tragedies, sorrows and the same feeling of helplessness that is now the fate of Ennis. Such was the brilliance of her dialogues that they were used in tact on the movie version. This shows the caliber of the writer. Absolutely riveting, a dazzling piece of work, exquisite execution and rendition akin to a beautiful song – This is a Major Literary
work.
