Author Topic: New book on Brokeback Mountain  (Read 30015 times)

Offline southendmd

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #20 on: October 28, 2009, 10:01:52 am »
You mean Dreamfilm?  (what is  the author's name?)

Or the Mark Asquith book?

I'm talking about the Asquith book. 

Offline Sason

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #21 on: October 28, 2009, 10:12:29 am »
Ok.

Does anyone know where the Dreamfilm book is to be found?

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Offline Monika

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #22 on: October 28, 2009, 10:34:45 am »

Offline Sason

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #23 on: October 28, 2009, 11:16:35 am »
Tack Monika!!!



How come this book's been around for over 2 years and I've never heard of it..... ???

Very strange....



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Offline chowhound

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #24 on: December 26, 2009, 08:09:36 pm »
I have just finished reading this new book by Mark Asquith. I thought I would post some reflections on it in case anybody is wondering whether to buy it or not. So here goes:

This latest book on Brokeback Mountain is part of a series called Continuum Contemporaries. Each volume
in this series is an exploration of a contemporary novel, though, in this case, Mark Asquith discusses not one but two works by Annie Proulx: Postcards and Brokeback Mountain. However, as each work is discussed in separate sections a reading of the Brokeback section can be undertaken without any prior knowledge of Postcards. Indeed, as far as I can see, few links between the two works are established.

Overall, I thought this was a thoughtful and intelligent reading of Brokeback Mountain. However, before undertaking his examination of the two works,  Mark Asquith provides the reader with a useful overview of Annie Proulx's life. He not only presents us with the essential facts and dates  - three marriages, three divorces, four children etc. - but also investigates her creation of her 'persona' as a writer of fiction: the down-to-earth, independent and somewhat enigmatic chronicler of rural life in America,

His discussion of Brokeback Mountain is concerned more with the short story than the film but the film is far from negelected. However, before examining the short story itself, Mark Asquith successfully places the story within the larger tradition of pastoral literature in the West, a tradition that starts in Classical times and is transferred to America by Walt Whitman who "...recognized in the splendour and marginality of the untamed American landscape a freedom for male love to express itself away from social confrontation"(p.80). Along with this, he briefly explores the relationship between Brokeback Mountain the biblical story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Of interest as well is his exploration of the creation of the cowboy myth in the nineteenth century through the medium of paintings and novels, a myth which portrays the cowboy as an archetype of masculinity. This myth, of course, is far from dead as the movies featuring John Wayne and others clearly demonstrates. It is a myth which Jack and Ennis largely buy into. Of less interest, for me at least, was his psychological exploration of Jack and Ennis
where both of them are portrayed as existing in a state of arrested development.

His reading of the short story itself as a pastoral tragedy I found convincing. It is perceptive, detailed and often illuminating. Some of the aspects that he touches on - like the domestic imprisonment of both men - could easily form discussion topics for a board like this.

His discussion of the movie version is briefer but often insightful. It is largely concerned with the ways in which the film altered or added to the short story, such as making Ennis a more caring father figure in the  movie as compared to the short story. As well as such general topics, however, from time to time he does focus on individual items, like the meaning and significance of the straight road that we see outside of Ennis`s trailer in the closing shot of the movie.

It is a fairly easy read, with about forty smallish pages given over to Brokeback Mountain. That said, Mark Asquith covers a lot of ground with insight, intelligence and admirable lucidity.

 

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #25 on: December 27, 2009, 12:07:06 am »
Thanks for your review, Chow! I also found the book interesting, although I was somewhat taken aback at the author's painting of Annie Proulx as a calculated brand manager. Somehow I don't equate that image with the privacy-loving scholarly, gentle woman I met several times!
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Offline chowhound

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #26 on: December 27, 2009, 05:08:00 am »
Thanks for your review, Chow! I also found the book interesting, although I was somewhat taken aback at the author's painting of Annie Proulx as a calculated brand manager. Somehow I don't equate that image with the privacy-loving scholarly, gentle woman I met several times!

Wow! So you've actually met Annie Proulx on more than one occasion. Any way I could persuade you to tell us more?

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #27 on: December 27, 2009, 10:41:54 am »
Wow! So you've actually met Annie Proulx on more than one occasion. Any way I could persuade you to tell us more?

Sure! Quite a few of us have met her, especially those fortunate enuff to live in or near NYC! Here are some links to where I've discussed this:
 At the Literary Festival in Casper, WY, October 20, 2006 and at the University of Boulder in late November 2006 when she talked about a book she was writing an essay for on the Red Desert. Also, check out My Year of Heaven in my blog where I discuss these meetings and the subsequent things I did between October 2006 and November 2007.

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Re: New book on Brokeback Mountain
« Reply #28 on: April 21, 2011, 02:29:48 pm »
I just reread this book by Mark Asquith this morning. I flagged about a dozen interesting points that I'll discuss at more length in other posts. I have a few quibbles with this book; first, that it's way too short. Of the 117 pages of text, only about 40 are devoted to Brokeback Mountain; the rest are about Proulx's novel Postcards. And of those 40 pages, a chapter is devoted to the movie, so the result is that the author merely scrapes the surface of the story (with a few exceptions that I flagged). Secondly, Asquith keeps talking about a narrator, a "he" who is calling the shots in the story. Occasionally he refers to Proulx but most of the time it's this "narrator" who gets all the credit. Asquith is obviously British, so maybe that's a Brit thing, along with his sometimes unusual punctuation and capitalization.

There seem to be a few errors in the critique. The most glaring one was when he discussed Jack and Ennis' tryst at the Phoenix motel. Phoenix? I thought it was the Siesta Motel! Hello!! Calling it the Phoenix motel does make some symbolic sense but the Siesta Motel works better because it was a respite from the world for Jack and Ennis, it foreshadowed Jack's "visits to Mexico" and besides, there IS a Siesta Motel in Kaycee, Wyoming that fits the bill very well!!!
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Male Love in Nature
« Reply #29 on: April 23, 2011, 01:51:13 pm »
One of the themes explored in this book by Mark Asquith is the tradition of male love that blossoms in the natural environment. The author cites many instances of this theme going all the way back to ancient Greece, to the myth of Hercules and Hylas. Its further development takes place among the British Romantics with Shelley and Keats in Adonais and Walt Whitman expressed it in American fashion in the Calamus poems. When the tradition moved into the American West, it grew stronger but was also sanitized into a "blood brother" or male bonding type of story, beginning with the Virginian by Owen Wister (the author mistakenly calls him Wistler) and extending through the art of Catlin and Remington and the novels of Buffalo Bill all the way to John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. But it was not until Proulx's Brokeback Mountain that the myth comes full circle back to the notion of the expression of male love in the natural environment. This notion is a bit shocking as nowadays we're used to seeing male couples in the cities and even Jack said that people in his situation "go to Denver" (the nearest large city to Wyoming). Does the natural environment really inspire young gays to express themselves more freely? Why don't we see more gay hiking groups and other outdoors clubs then? Stories of gay women in nature are even rarer...I can't think of a one off the top of my head. Would like to know your thoughts!
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