When I read the story for the 1st time, which I did before watching the film.Two sections tore me apart,and in fact left me gasping for breath, literally.
In fact as I think of them again I feel my chest tightening and throat constricting.
The first was. The whole dozy embrace section.
"Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness,in their separate and difficult lives" I remember thinking just one single moment in all those years.How little true happiness either of them had in their lives.The s.s continues,
"Nothing marred it,even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held"
That second sentence indicates just how very little it took to please Jack.How full of pathos those few words,Jack is childlike in his simple needs.Like a baby who is soothed in their mothers' arms.
The whole scene actually reminds me of parent and child, as the parent stands gently rocking a troubled and unsettled infant to soothe it.Even down to the fact that Ennis "rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the heartbeat ......... and standing, he fell into a sleep that was not sleep"
I can remember doing that so many times with my children, the rhythm of my heart beat soothing them and just humming away quietly.Ennis is even humming himself.
That whole section always invokes the same heart rending response in me.Ennis is the older, in terms of world weary, and battle worn, Jack is still the child with his youthful optimism who believes anything is possible.It is so analogous with the parent child scenario,with one vital and I think important difference.It is usually the parent who while rocking their child, has all the hopes for the future.I n this case it is the child.ie Jack.
At that moment I remember clear as day having a horrible flashback to the prologue and knowing, this was all going to end badly.
The second part that tore me apart, was one single sentence in the final paragraph.
"And he would awake sometimes in grief,sometimes with the old sense of joy and release; the pillow sometimes wet,sometimes the sheet.
The thought of Ennis crying in his sleep, silently and the tears wetting the pillow is too much to bear.The enormous love that, he realises way too late and the subtle reference to a wet dream with the sheets sometimes wet.
This is a much gentler Proulx, who has previously talked of the sex between the two of them in much more raw and basic ways.Here it is just implied.
I could write pages on just that one sentence.Even the fact that in sleep,Ennis still has no respite.The thought that as he lies in bed in his sparse trailer he never knows if he will awaken having cried in his sleep, or if he will have had a glorious sexy dream of Jack, which as he wakes he is forced to confront the fact that it is just a dream and face the whole horror anew.
Combining that sentence with the prologue, which has Ennis feeling of being " suffused with pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dreams"
Then we read how if "he lets a panel of the dream slide forward....... it might stoke the day".........reminding him " of the cold time on the mountain when they owned the world"
An ironic statement, when compared to the present where Ennis owns nothing, not even the meagre trailer.It also serves to remind us that Jack was always the dreamer, and yet now we have Ennis, with nothing left except his dreams.The major difference being that in life, Jack had dreams for their future,in death Ennis has only dreams of the past.The whole section further underlines how completely out of synch. they were with each other, a situation that never changes, even in death.
It does not matter how many times I read the s.s , those sections reduce me to tears.It is all there.The optimism of a youthful Jack, who believed no harm could come to him.The paranoia of Ennis who feels exactly the opposite.Yet by the end it is difficult to tell who has suffered most.Jack is now dead and so his pain has gone.Ennis has to confront it on a daily basis, and has no respite even in sleep.
The thought of a grown man crying in his sleep, and yet desperately trying to hang on to a good dream,is so sad and lonely, it is difficult to bear.Ennis at the end is in a worse situation than Ennis at the start, alone at the start, but now having experienced love, he is alone and lonely.
Proulx has weaved her magic and we come full circle, with Ennis, which in turn ties in perfectly,with Jack in the dozy embrace flashback thinking,
"maybe
they'd never got much further than that"
All those years, all that love, all that pain, and where do we end,almost back at the start.Twenty years lived and the end result is not much different for Ennis than the start, except he has now experienced love, which he has lost, so he is arguably in an even worse place than at the start.
I have never set much store by the much overused statement, it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Sorry don't agree with that, to have loved and lost hurts like hell.Better for me , the adage, what you have never had you never miss.
Proulx genius is in weaving a story where all roads finally come almost back to the start, with so many parallels in between,the reader may never discover them all.To have that magic happen with so few words is even more extraordinary. I can only remember my father crying once, and it haunts me still to this day.He was then a very austere father figure,who kept a firm check on his emotions.The sight of him sitting at the head of the table with silent tears rolling down as he carved the beef,nearly destroyed me. It could be that is the reason that the thought of Ennis silently crying in his sleep,is more than I can bear.
Proulx herself says, that a story is never finished until it has been read. I love that sentiment.It allows us to all take from it based on our own experiences, so no two interpretations will be the same.
How astute is that,no wonder she is so well regarded.I know the dozy embrace scene resonates so much with me as I have my own real life version, and it still hurts.
O.K second box of Kleenex opened.
One final note, I am an avaricious reader,so despite majoring in the sciences, I always took English as an extra subject, as I love to read.Never in the thousands of books that I have read, has one not only crawled under my skin, refusing to leave,in this way, but in addition has had me examine the very core of my soul.The person who gave a copy to me, knew me better even than my own family.He knew exactly what my reaction would be.Unfortunately, I ignored my heart and carried on running.
Could it be when Freddie Mercury sings,
"theres no time for us ,theres no place for us,
what is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away from us,
Theres no chance for us,
its all decided for us
this world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.
He hits the nail exactly on the head.
Jack has his dozy embrace, Ennis has his little darlin, reunion kiss
Interesting how I have had to use so many words to try and describe the emotion invoked by so few.!!!!
