And prickly, Ms. P., don'cha think, Meryl!
Thank you, Fernly, and Thanks!, Lee, for the heads-up! in re the WSJ article below:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122065020058105139.html?mod=yahoo_itp&ru=yahooReturn to the RangeAnnie Proulx goes back to Wyoming for her new short-story collection
By ROBERT J. HUGHES
September 6, 2008; Page W2Annie Proulx's novel "The Shipping News" won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and her stories include "Brokeback Mountain," the basis for the Academy Award-winning film. Her latest story collection, "Fine Just the Way It Is," is her third set in Wyoming. In nine pieces, she explores the hard lives of aging cowboys, ranch hands and pioneers, and especially the lot of women.
Ms. Proulx, who doesn't have a land line at her house in Wyoming, answered questions by email.
WSJ: This is the third volume of Wyoming stories. Is it your last set in that state?Annie Proulx: Yes, this is the last of the Wyoming stories. If I do write any more they will go into the storage cupboard. It's not because my idea of Wyoming story material is played out, but partly because I want to avoid the regional-writer label. And because I'm attracted to different landscapes and characters of greater ethnic diversity. And because I want to work on something different.
WSJ: The final story in the collection explores the role of women in Wyoming (and even the Army), the return of injured Iraq war vets, the difficulty of the ranching life in general. Even today, then, women on ranches, are secondary citizens, aren't they?Ms. Proulx: In a real sense women on ranches are secondary citizens, but many, if not most, would be furious if you said that out straight. They see themselves as the mythic Western women, mate to the mythic cowboy/rancher—strong, good-natured and cheerful, independent, hard-working, able to solve hard physical problems, tireless, God-fearing, decent and upright and all the rest of it. Most ranch women do live as though these ideals were attainable. Some of them single-handedly run big ranches after the men are dead—if they are lucky enough to inherit the place. But once in a while the disturbing word gets out that ranch life is not paradise on earth for women. I'm thinking of
Judy Blunt's quite bitter "Breaking Clean," the Hasselstrom-Collier-Curtis collection "Leaning into the Wind," and
Alice Marriott's "Hell on Women and Horses." I know Ms. Blunt was excoriated by many ranch women who felt betrayed. Alice Marriott was not excoriated but praised, because she presented her ranch women as proud and happy with their very tough but satisfying lives. "Leaning into the Wind" contains both points of view. It goes both ways, of course, and there are worse situations than to live with the belief that you are part of a hard-working, decent, traditional society, that you are living the finest kind of life, and though the price is daily battle with difficulties, you welcome them, knowing you can cope. My final collection of Wyoming stories focuses on women, as the two preceding collections were about men. Because Wyoming is a rural place, and because in rural places the economies and ways of life are usually dominated by livestock or natural resource extraction that take physical strength, it is usually men who do the work and control everything. In general outsiders are seen as threats, as harbingers of unwanted change.
WSJ: Several stories center on the hard lives of women, and the scorn in which men hold them. "Family Man," for example – an interesting title given the way the story plays out . The love of men for men – grandfathers for grandsons, sons for long-lost fathers, informs some of these stories as well. You are interested in the strange byways of human emotions.Ms. Proulx: Yes, our human loves and hates, one's sense of self, a character's behavior in parlous circumstances all interest me. I think it's not so much scorn that Western men feel for women as something more pedestrian; for many men women are lesser creatures, closer to working stock than equals.
WSJ: Your characters don't necessarily have this epiphanic moment of awareness. Sometimes, events overtake them too quickly, sometimes they just don't get it. Do you feel that this is an area you can explore better in a short story than a novel? Ms. Proulx: Yes. The failure to comprehend, not to look ahead at possibilities, to let things slide along, hoping for the best but getting the worst, is a theme that seems well suited to the short-story form. Many of the stories in this collection encompass situations that might be expanded into novels. The need to condense rather than inflate gives a kind of power to the sentences and to the story itself. Working on large themes in a small space is difficult but extremely satisfying when one gets it right. But to me the short story is the superior literary form, perhaps because didactic, moral and social forces can play subsonic roles. My interest in history and social change fits the short-story form. My stories, I suppose, can be read as small examples of particular social times and places. I have always liked
John Compton's anecdote in his lively "Life of the Spider" about attending a Chinese opera which sounded to him like squalling cat fights, and, later, as a treat for some Chinese friends playing a recording of "Ave Maria"—the friends rolled on the floor shrieking with helpless laughter.
WSJ: Are there subjects or stories perhaps better suited to a longer form, for you?Ms. Proulx: Well, yes, there are, but rather intangible. All I can say is that I know them when I see them. Quoyle's travails in "The Shipping News," for example, needed a long, slow buildup before he could attain grace. To use the absence of pain as the definition of happiness depended on his lifetime of misery. "Accordion Crimes" covered the U.S. history of characters in eight or nine ethnic groups—simply could not have been compressed into a short form.
WSJ: The emotional disconnectedness of your characters is apparent in stories set in the past and ones set in the present. Do you see this emotional ignorance as an ongoing part of the human condition?Ms. Proulx: I like the phrase "emotional ignorance." I think that emotional ignorance defines most of us, especially Americans, who believe in romantic, lasting love and happiness. Both beliefs are conducive to an almost innocent expectation of a RIGHT to be loved and to be happy without earning it. Since those expectations are very often dashed in real life, emotional ignorance is often paid for with a laggard sense of betrayal, bitter tears and, eventually, a tablespoon of cynicism. How the cold light of eventuality falls on the characters and what they do with it certainly interests me.
WSJ: This compares to a story such as "I've Always Loved This Place," in which the devil himself is among those responsible for the faddishness of home design, landscaping and such – not to mention the magazines that cater to these areas. Not to mention targets such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Canada Revenue and cyclists, among many, many others – a Dantean litany of modern-day horrors, so to speak. And in "Swamp Mischief," we get a wonderful picture of the hellishness of the email universe – and plagues descending on the land. Your Devil is an original creature – part punisher, part decorator, part futurist. These are stories tinged with cynicism, and a wry approach – did you position them within the volume as relief from the heavier-going stories? Ms. Proulx: The devil tales were indeed placed in the collection as relief from darker and more serious stories. This was the suggestion of
Liz Darhansoff, my agent, some years ago in earlier collections of the Wyoming stories. For me the devil stuff is also a relief from the more intense work. They are rather fun to write. I did spend considerable time years ago reading
Morton W. Bloomfield's "The Seven Deadly Sins," and of course I have
Thorndike's "History of Science and Experimental Magic" and other delightful reference works to aid me in working with vain thoughts and efforts. A glance at any late-night talk show host will supply the devil's glib style.
WSJ: Your characters also have unusual and memorable names, at least to Eastern ears – Queeda, Clatter, Verl, and older-fashioned ones such as Bonita, Mizpah and Jedediah. Do you keep a list of names, do you note them in your reading, in your conversations with people in the area?Ms. Proulx: Actually the names are not as peculiar as you may think. Pick up your local phone book and peruse the columns of subscribers. Plenty of curious names. The non-norm names began because, as a reader, I disliked names that all sounded alike. I was constantly losing track of whether Joe was the lawyer or the murderer, and Jim the magician or the tennis pro, and John the archery instructor or the bar tender. So, in the beginning I chose unusual names for characters as a mnemonic device to aid the reader. Musician Jim White once sent me pages of oddball names he culled from crime reports in Florida newspapers. I'm saving them for a Florida novel. (Not.) And yes, I do keep notebooks full of names for characters. Aside from telephone directories good sources of names are histories and bibliographies. One does not use someone else's entire name, of course, but only pieces of it. One of the name traits of the (old) West that I like is the way pioneer mothers gave their infant boys "girl" names such as Carol, Helen, Marion and many others.
WSJ: When you have an idea for a story does it begin with an image, an idea of a conversation, a photograph perhaps or even a geographical area?Ms. Proulx: The ideas for stories (for me) nearly always come from the geography, but an occasional overheard phrase can start the machinery as well. You can make a story out of almost nothing if you have a mind that is inclined toward stories.
WSJ: Are there writers you admire who have written about the West, such as Willa Cather ("The Song of the Lark," in addition to her better-known novels like "O Pioneers") or John Williams (of "Stoner" and "Butcher's Crossing"), or others? Are there writers who've influenced you?Ms. Proulx: Actually I read very little "Western" fiction. What fiction I do read is usually foreign books in translation. But I read a great deal of Western history which I find more interesting and thought-provoking than the fiction. Haven't read Willa Cather since I was a teenager. (But met her geologist grandson a few weeks ago.) I don't know about the "influence" situation but there are many, many fiction writers whose work I enjoy and admire. The list includes
Aidan Higgins,
James Welch,
J. F. Powers,
Barbara Baynton,
Dermot Healy,
Nathaneal West,
Tim Gautreaux,
Graham Greene,
William H. Gass,
George Higgins,
Michael Ondaatje,
Cathie Pelletier and many, many more. Once, stuck on the tarmac for an hour I made a list of favorites which ran to more than 60 names, but I don't think that is what you want just now. Of course the list changes constantly.
WSJ: Are you working on another novel? If so, and if it's not too early in the writing process, can you speak about it? Ms. Proulx: I'm not actively working on another novel, but I have one in mind and am gathering my materials and thinking about it. It is roughly set in a long temperate geographic sweep from the Atlantic northeast to New Zealand.
WSJ: What effect did the success of "Brokeback Mountain" have on your writing life, if any?Ms. Proulx: "
Brokeback Mountain" has had little effect on my writing life, but is the source of constant irritation in my private life. There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story. They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for "fixing" the story. They certainly don't get the message that if you can't fix it you've got to stand it. Most of these "fix-it" tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men's children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, "I'm not gay but…." They do not understand the original story, they know nothing of copyright infringement—i.e., that the characters
Jack Twist and
Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property—and, beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can. They have not a clue that the original "
Brokeback Mountain" was part of a collection of stories about Wyoming exploring mores and myths. The general impression I get is that they are bouncing off the film, not the story. There's more, but that is enough, ok?
Write to Robert J. Hughes at
[email protected]