Author Topic: The short story  (Read 21825 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: The short story
« Reply #20 on: December 04, 2006, 03:49:54 pm »
Hey there, Jeff,

I believe that the prologue is in essence an epilogue, regardless of when Annie wrote it or added it, for exactly the reasons you mention.  It's apparent to me that Ennis has lived with the pain of being without Jack for quite some time.  He seems to have been dealing with the dreams coming to him for a length of time such that he has made peace with them, considering himself fortunate when they're good and he can use them to 'stoke the day.'(?)  It's as if he's had enough time to develop rituals, if that makes any sense.

True. I agree.

Quote
Regarding the trailer's bathroom - I suspect it has plumbing, but it's either not functional (likely), or Ennis is so apathetic about the state of his life that p*ssing in the sink seems like the thing to do (equallly likely IMO).

Both possible, perhaps even likely. It just reminds me of my grandparents' early travel trailer. It had a little kitchen sink--you hooked up a hose to the outside of the trailer--but no bathroom.

What I'm getting at is, this description in the story gives me a mental image of a set-up even worse than the trailer we see in the film. The stove where he reheats the left-over coffee (eew) is maybe not much more than a two-burner propane hotplate. He's living in it--perhaps for free--on the ranch where he has been working, which has just been sold--the owner left him the keys to turn over to "the real estate shark." It's just this dumpy, tiny, rusty old travel trailer that nobody wants anymore, maybe parked out behind the horse barn and surrounded with weeds. He doesn't even have a bathroom--has to use an outhouse somewhere and wash up at the tiny sink.

So all he really has are the shirts and his dreams and memories of Jack.  :(
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: The short story
« Reply #21 on: December 04, 2006, 04:27:25 pm »
I was amazed to learn this tidbit of information. I have always assumed it was an editing decision to leave the prologue off. I couldn't believe a magazine of the stature of the the New Yorker would make this sort of egregious error.

No wonder Annie almost had a stroke!

L

Tell you what, taken at literal face value of the words, "they forgot to typeset it" sounds a little fishy to me. I mean, I don't know how The New Yorker works now, or how it worked in 1997, but--she didn't get proofs? Jesus H.! Notwithstanding that it's The New Yorker, I'd have had a stroke if I didn't get proofs. I believe she said what she said, but I'd think maybe an error like this was more likely to happen when the pages of the story were made up.

Folks, I'm not calling Annie Proulx a liar. I am making a technical distinction between setting the text of the story into type and actually arranging--or making up--the contents of the magazine for printing. After spending most of my working life in endeavors connected to writing, editing, and publishing, it seems very weird to me that she would not have been sent a proof, a preliminary copy of the story after it was first set into type, where it would have been hard to miss that the prologue wasn't there.

Or maybe there's just more to the story of the missing prologue that "we" haven't been told.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

moremojo

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Re: The short story
« Reply #22 on: December 04, 2006, 04:36:40 pm »
What I'm getting at is, this description in the story gives me a mental image of a set-up even worse than the trailer we see in the film. The stove where he reheats the left-over coffee (eew) is maybe not much more than a two-burner propane hotplate. He's living in it--perhaps for free--on the ranch where he has been working, which has just been sold--the owner left him the keys to turn over to "the real estate shark." It's just this dumpy, tiny, rusty old travel trailer that nobody wants anymore, maybe parked out behind the horse barn and surrounded with weeds. He doesn't even have a bathroom--has to use an outhouse somewhere and wash up at the tiny sink.

So all he really has are the shirts and his dreams and memories of Jack.  :(
It's also striking that there's no mention of a closet in the story trailer. Ennis hangs the treasured shirts, with the affixed postcard above them, directly onto the trailer wall. These very well may be the same shirts we read mentioned in passing in the prologue.

I agree that Ennis's situation seems much bleaker by the written story's end than in the film.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: The short story
« Reply #23 on: December 04, 2006, 05:02:57 pm »
It's also striking that there's no mention of a closet in the story trailer. Ennis hangs the treasured shirts, with the affixed postcard above them, directly onto the trailer wall. These very well may be the same shirts we read mentioned in passing in the prologue.

I agree that Ennis's situation seems much bleaker by the written story's end than in the film.

Exactly! I've always understood that we are to take the shirts mentioned in the prologue to be the "Brokeback" shirts. Struck me, too, even the first time I saw the movie, that apparently in the story the shirts are hanging out in the open--not that Ennis probably has many visitors.  :(
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

karen1129

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Re: The short story
« Reply #24 on: December 04, 2006, 06:19:46 pm »
I really wish some things in the book would have made it to the movie.  Like, Ennis telling Jack he should have never let him out of his sight.  Ennis telling Jack how bad he felt when they parted that first summer. 
I read the story the night before I saw the movie.  Didn't really soak it up. After seeing the movie the
first time, I was almost pissed at Ennis at the end.  I really got more of a sense of Ennis' pain in the story.
Then, I was able to go watch again and see how Heath was able to portray that pain in actions.


I also have always wondered about the time lapse between the end of the story, and the prologue in the
book.  I have always felt it was many, many years.  Many years of Ennis in pain ! Many years of lonliness
and regret.  Here come the tears !

Karen
 

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: The short story
« Reply #25 on: December 04, 2006, 06:34:34 pm »
Good observations, Karen. I felt the same way you did about movie Ennis. His reticence was emphasized more in the story, perhaps to contrast to Jack. The story was like Jack and ENnis together against a cruel world, while in the movie, it was almost like Jack and Ennis against each other. I like the way both the story and the movie were developed but when I think about Ennis and Jack, I prefer to think about them as they were in the story. Thanks for your eloquent post.
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karen1129

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Re: The short story
« Reply #26 on: December 04, 2006, 08:22:13 pm »
I have to say, the book certainly gave me more perpective on these two young mens bond.  They both came from undemonstrative homes.... poverty...
really had no prospects.......  but most importantly.... neither had EVER had
a friend.  Someone that listened and cared.  That part where Ennis goes back
to the sheep that one night after talking with Jack at camp..... he felt he could paw the white out of the moon.  He had never had that much fun before.
How sad is that ! 

Karen

Offline mlewisusc

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Re: The short story
« Reply #27 on: December 04, 2006, 11:12:42 pm »


Hey there, Jeff,

I believe that the prologue is in essence an epilogue, regardless of when Annie wrote it or added it, for exactly the reasons you mention.  It's apparent to me that Ennis has lived with the pain of being without Jack for quite some time.  He seems to have been dealing with the dreams coming to him for a length of time such that he has made peace with them, considering himself fortunate when they're good and he can use them to 'stoke the day.'(?)  It's as if he's had enough time to develop rituals, if that makes any sense.


I love talking about the story...wish I had my copy at work - need a 3rd!

Lynne

This is the first time I though about this, and to me it's a major insight.  The end of the story is pretty bleak, with Ennis alternating between joy and grief from his dreams of Jack.  The fact that the prologue assumes that ANY dream about Jack would "stoke" Ennis's day, and that's a revelation to me - but it makes sense, and a lot more sense, if the prologue is several years later than the end of the story.  I agree with this opinion.  Does that make it much more acceptable to everyone? ;)
"Good enough place" - Ennis del Mar

Offline fernly

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Re: The short story
« Reply #28 on: December 04, 2006, 11:28:11 pm »
As far as how many years, just a thought, what if when she wrote the prologue she was setting it in 'real time'? (It is written in present tense.) Close Range was published in '99. If she wrote it in 98, that would put Ennis around 54 or 55.

(and I'm going to repeat part of something I posted in another thread a couple months back) ...I think the fact that the prologue is in the present tense, in contrast to the past tense of the rest of the story (except maybe the very last sentence) underlines... that Ennis... is existing in a 'timeless', ever 'present' state, emotionally. Physically aging, physically moving to his daughter's and then another ranch, but his emotions and inner life always with Jack, even when the wind dies for a moment, leaving a "temporary silence."


« Last Edit: December 04, 2006, 11:31:21 pm by fernly »
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karen1129

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Re: The short story
« Reply #29 on: December 04, 2006, 11:36:33 pm »
As far as how many years, just a thought, what if when she wrote the prologue she was setting it in 'real time'? (It is written in present tense.) Close Range was published in '99. If she wrote it in 98, that would put Ennis around 54 or 55.

(and I'm going to repeat part of something I posted in another thread a couple months back) ...I think the fact that the prologue is in the present tense, in contrast to the past tense of the rest of the story (except maybe the very last sentence) underlines... that Ennis... is existing in a 'timeless', ever 'present' state, emotionally. Physically aging, physically moving to his daughter's and then another ranch, but his emotions and inner life always with Jack, even when the wind dies for a moment, leaving a "temporary silence."




Awwwwww.  That's beautiful !  So sad.