TOTW 12/08: What's your take on the detailed nature descriptions in the SS?

[Penthesilea]

What do you make of the detailed nature descriptions in the short story?

At some points, Annie Proulx includes very detailed descriptions of nature in her story. I'll give some examples to show what I'm talking about:

„Dawn came glassy orange, stained from below by a gelatinous band of pale green. The sooty bulk of the mountain paled slowly until it was the same color as the smoke from Enniss's breakfast fire. The cold air sweetened, banded pebbles and crumbs of soil cast sudden pencil-long shadows and the rearing lodgepole pines below them massed in slabs of somber malachite.“
(beginning, their first morning on the mountain)


„ The meadow stones glowed white-green and a flinty wind worked over the meadow, scraped the fire low, then ruffled it into yellow silk ashes.“
(directly before TS1)


„ ...and they packed in the game and moved off the mountain with the sheep, stones rolling at their heels, purple cloud crowding in from the west and the metal smell of coming snow pressing them on. The mountain boiled with demonic energy, glazed with flickering broken-cloud light, the wind combed the grass and drew from the damaged krummholz and slit rock a bestial drone.“
(coming down the mountain)


„ Years on years they worked their way throught the high meadows and mountain drainages, horse-packing into the Big Horns, Medicine Bows, south end of the Gallatins, Absarokas, Granites, Owl Creeks, the Bridger-Teton Range, the Freezeouts and the Shirleys, Ferrises and the Rattlesnakes, Salt River Range into the Wind Rivers over and again, the Sierra Madres, Gros Ventres, the Washakies, Laramies, but never returning to Brokeback.“


„ In May of 1983 ....“
(All of the first paragraphs of their last meeting contain detailed nature description, from the bitter juniper to the tea-colored river to the meadow protected by a stand of lodgepole. Too much to type here)



Do you like these passages?
Do you just read over them without giving them much thought?
Do you think they are dispensable?
Do you think they add to the feel of the story, to its authencity?
Do you enjoy them for their eloquence, their linguistic artistry?
Do you think they have more meaning than what meets the eye at first sight? Meaning do they add to develop the plot?
Other thoughts?


What do you make of the detailed nature descriptions in the short story?

[Penthesilea]

Ok, I'll go first this week, to get my point across.

My own take on this aspect of Annie Proulx's story has changed quite a bit over the last two years. The first time I read the story was after I had seen the movie and was totally blown away from it (surprise! ). I was intrigued by those characters and their story, and wanted more.

For me the detailed descriptions of nature didn't add to the plot itself (back then), they didn't bring forward the story. An aggravating factor was that English is not my native language and I had to look up the one or other word, especially regarding her nature descriptions. Soon I gave up on doing so and just skimmed through these parts without much interest. I thought they were dispensable.

However, with time I had a closer look at them. I began to like them for their linguistic artistry and since the story is so much a Wyoming story, they add to its authencitiy.

Later even, I asked myself why Annie Proulx had included those details and why. She herself said in interviews, that in a short story every single word has to be right, has to carry meaning, that even the punctuation is important.

With this in mind, I reread the story once again and noticed that these passages seem to correlate with important points of the plot: their first morning together on the mountain (their first time alone);  directly before their first sexual encounter; leaving the mountain; and at the beginning of their last time together.

What is your take on this aspect of the short story?

[myprivatejack]

I can't speak very properly about this topic,because I read the s.s. rather after having seen the movie,and in a Spanish translation; so,although global words are the same,surely some descriptions nuances have been lost in translation,what avoided me to catch all the majesty's that Annie wanted us to feel.However,I suppose that all these descriptions surrounding some key moments of their staying on the mountain,are written so as a way of remarking the quality of "Paradise on Earth" that BBM had for them,both physically and emotionally.And the fact that they described the beauty of the landscape when they spent their first time together as a friends,their first sexual encounter and their last moments together-their last on that summer on BBM and their real last time being Jack alive-.All these coincidences,are only a way to heighten this quality of tragic beauty of the mountain,always in contradiction when the real world they were going to find when they came down of it ; that was more tragical in the case of their last encounter,when this real world was going to be their main enemy,their cage,in comparison with their freedom in BBM,their shelter,their Paradise.Yes,for me it could be a symbolism in the majestic description of Brokeback beauty.

[Front-Ranger]

Thanks so much for getting us to focus on this delightful subject!

My feeling is that Annie wanted to make comparisons and show similarities between the landscapes and the characters. For instance, in the passage you cited:

and they packed in the game and moved off the mountain with the sheep, stones rolling at their heels, purple cloud crowding in from the west and the metal smell of coming snow pressing them on. The mountain boiled with demonic energy, glazed with flickering broken-cloud light, the wind combed the grass and drew from the damaged krummholz and slit rock a bestial drone

see how she talks about the sheep and then mentions the clouds crowding in...you get an image of the clouds mirroring the sheep. The mountain is pictured similarly to the authoritarian masculine characters of Old Man Twist, Aguirre, or Ennis' dad. The wind is anthropomorphized as a kind of shepherd of the earth, combing the grass and eliciting beastly moans.

Annie Proulx has mentioned how she has studied artists and one of them, Charles Russell, often painted a scene of men, horses, and livestock in their earthly struggles mirrored by the sky and clouds above. Ang Lee also took his cue from AP, and included scenery throughout the movie such as a shot of two clouds at sunset, one dark blue and one orange. Obviously they are meant to stand for Jack and Ennis.

[brokeplex]

Dawn came glassy orange, stained from below by a gelatinous band of pale green. The sooty bulk of the mountain paled slowly until it was the same color as the smoke from Enniss's breakfast fire. The cold air sweetened, banded pebbles and crumbs of soil cast sudden pencil-long shadows and the rearing lodgepole pines below them massed in slabs of somber malachite.“

my fav quotation from the ss.

[myprivatejack]

Thanks so much for getting us to focus on this delightful subject!

My feeling is that Annie wanted to make comparisons and show similarities between the landscapes and the characters. For instance, in the passage you cited:

see how she talks about the sheep and then mentions the clouds crowding in...you get an image of the clouds mirroring the sheep. The mountain is pictured similarly to the authoritarian masculine characters of Old Man Twist, Aguirre, or Ennis' dad. The wind is anthropomorphized as a kind of shepherd of the earth, combing the grass and eliciting beastly moans.

Annie Proulx has mentioned how she has studied artists and one of them, Charles Russell, often painted a scene of men, horses, and livestock in their earthly struggles mirrored by the sky and clouds above. Ang Lee also took his cue from AP, and included scenery throughout the movie such as a shot of two clouds at sunset, one dark blue and one orange. Obviously they are meant to stand for Jack and Ennis.

Yes,it can have a similarity with the subject of the colours in both men´s clothes; symbolising the Earth and the Air,the character rooted in his land and the character volatile,changeable,adaptable.

[optom3]

I read the book before seeing the film and the fantastic imagery really allowed my imagination free rein. I was surprised when watching the film,to see how close to what I had imagined the scenery was.This has to stand testament to Proulx's descriptive narrative.
The only problem I had was with the description of Jack in the S.S which was so different from Jack as portrayed by Jake.This is nothing to do with the acting,which is excellent,and everything to do with the vivid description that Proulx gives us.
However onece I had read the story several more times,also watched the film more times than I can remember,Jake and Jack semed to morph into one.Heath and Ennis had always seemed similar,in my head.
The scenic descriptions,whether short and to the point,or more lengthy.always seem to mirror the characters.At the start of the story,the office is described as "choky" in much the way Ennis almost seems to choke on his words.
Later in the story Ennis is described as looking over "a great gulf" at Jack which is akin to the great gulf between the two of them.Jack  "in his dark camp saw Ennis as night fire a red spark" Again it seems that the image fits what Jack is feeling,Ennis is his bright light in an otherwise dark life.
The whole story is suffused with such descriptions and to me it just demonstrates the genius of her writing.Oh that I was even one tenth as talented.
The description of the mountain "boiled with demonic energy" is simply incredible.In a few short words she portrays all the pentup frustration of Ennis,his fears,the passion betwen the two men,all too soon cut short,and so much more.
Every time I read the story,something else leaps out at me.As Proulx herself says,in a short story every word has to count.She certainly manages to do that with this one.

[Vermont Sunset]

Dawn came glassy orange, stained from below by a gelatinous band of pale green. The sooty bulk of the mountain paled slowly until it was the same color as the smoke from Enniss's breakfast fire. The cold air sweetened, banded pebbles and crumbs of soil cast sudden pencil-long shadows and the rearing lodgepole pines below them massed in slabs of somber malachite.“

my fav quotation from the ss.

I am so taken by this paragraph that I have endeavored to describe the dawn for each day of the year.

But let's continue with her description both immediately before and after that paragraph. The "ascent into heaven" as I call it is accompanied by the music from BBM1

Ennis and Jack, the dogs, horses and mules, a thousand ewes and their lambs flowed up the trail like dirt water through the timber and out above the tree line into the great flowery meadows and the coursing, endless wind."

I am rendered breathless every time I imagine them climbing that slope.

And then continuing right after the dawn description.

During the day Ennis looked across a great gulf and sometimes saw Jack, a small dot moving across a high meadow as an insect moves across a table cloth. Jack, in his dark camp, saw Ennis as night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain

Jack as Meadow Dot, Ennis as Night Fire. Incredible. ( but she does throw one little "burr" into this description. It just occurred to me recently. What would you do to an insect you saw crawling across a tablecloth, huh?)

In less than one page she has described three of the most beautiful scenes imaginable, inextricably entwined with the men's feelings about each other and our feelings about them.

If you have read Close Range, the collection of Short stories in which BBM appears, you will realize this is unique. AP's characters are crushed and contorted by the harsh economic, social and physical environment in which they try to survive. but in BBM she lets nature ease up just a bit to allow the tender and fragile love of these two boys to flourish.

It was just the two of them alone on the mountain, flying innthe euphoric bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of the vehicle on the plain below. Suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark hours

[brokeplex]

"It was just the two of them alone on the mountain, flying in the euphoric bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of the vehicle on the plain below. Suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark"

Their Arcadia was both beautiful and doomed, as they really weren't alone after all. But, the vision of an Arcadia where they, or someone like them under their circumstances can be happy, is so very moving. Perhaps I think of the "natural" descriptions of their Arcadia on the mountain as being so appealing because it is painted on a canvas that is not so pretty, the real world of the small economically depressed towns and its harsh judgements of them.

And, a doomed beauty is often the most moving type of beauty, as it is fragile and transitory.

[Vermont Sunset]

"It was just the two of them alone on the mountain, flying in the euphoric bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back and the crawling lights of the vehicle on the plain below. Suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark"

Their Arcadia was both beautiful and doomed, as they really weren't alone after all. But, the vision of an Arcadia where they, or someone like them under their circumstances can be happy, is so very moving. Perhaps I think of the "natural" descriptions of their Arcadia on the mountain as being so appealing because it is painted on a canvas that is not so pretty, the real world of the small economically depressed towns and its harsh judgements of them.

And, a doomed beauty is often the most moving type of beauty, as it is fragile and transitory.

Annie called it the "sad impossibility of their love."