When you visit a good restaurant you enjoy the taste of the food and benefit from its nutrition. Why worry if the cook is having a hissy fit out back in the kitchen?
I've never thought that the fanfic "changes" the end of the story- that's kind of the point, right? that the fanfic is a kind of "alternate universe"? Anyway, that's kind of how I think about that sort of stuff.....I admit that when I first heard of it, especially slash, I thought it was kind of......disrespectful? (unintentionally of course) - either to the original actors/writers (be it Star Trek, HP, BBM, whatever). But, that ORIGINAL still exists; it's still out there in its original form and nothing else changes that. And honestly, I think of the fanfic as completely separate from - but perhaps also completely connected to???
- the "original."
At the same time, anything I've ever written (or thought about writing) would never"disrespect" (what I think Annie might say) the original story/characters/author/etc by "changing" the ending....but only because I've never really felt inspired to do so. I dunno....maybe I just kind of like the idea of fitting fanfic into the original plotline since it's like, "oh hey, this COULD have been part of the original." Then again, people who extend the story or "change" the ending are saying pretty much the same thing I guess.
So here's my two cents that I already said over in "Annie Annie Annie" where the interview was discussed:
"Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property"
...yawn.
"beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can"
Yawn, part II. I think that's an assumption on your part, Annie....
I think Annie Proulx DOES have a problem with ownership, afer all, why would she have had her publisher send cease and desist orders to little old fanfic writers like me and threaten to get CBS's lawyers after me? Even though fan fiction falls in the large grey area of inellectual property law, I don't have the money to put where my mouth is so I obeyed the cease and desist order, and ultimately I am glad I wrote an original story instead of hanging it on Annie Proulx's coat rack.
...exactly. It seems like she's more concerned with preserving her characters (her story and ending) than anything else - I mean, surely it's not about the money one way or the other......either she doesn't need/want it or she could profit from "collaborative" fanfic. The interview excerpts make her sound....well, not good. Arrogant, I guess. Although I do sympathize with what appears to be her desire to preserve the integrity of her original story.....and (even tho I THINK this has prob been discussed to death elsewhere) I can understand her labeling certain attempts (ahem, slash) as "pornish".
(for the record, I'm not "anti-slash".)
I'm going to have to read some more of her work now (I can't remember how much of Close Range I read), because every interview I've come across makes her sound incredibly pretentious. I dunno; maybe we are (I am) just bouncing off the film too much.......I feel as if she gave us this beautiful story with these incredible characters but doesn't seem to give a damn about them. I wonder how she really feels about the movie, since she didn't do the screenplay.
From what I've come across, I can't figure out her background either; it's kind of a mystery. "Hard knocks" tho, I think not - more like upper class liberal arts major (but "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"). Some details are there, but those don't really reveal much about her as a person.....I feel like I might understand her work and her better if I knew more than the info from a few interview quotes and wikipedia.
Aside from info from good ol' wikipedia
here's a couple old (1997, 1999) interviews:
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/factfict/eapint.htmhttp://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/23/specials/proulx-home.htmland a biography -
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Pe-Pu/Proulx-E-Annie.htmlCheers!