Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll

[louisev]

you are very welcome, I am glad you enjoyed it.  I am sure Ennis enjoyed it as well!

[magicmountain]

The Laramie Saga: confronting some painful truths about Jack and Ennis

Now we are nearing the end of the Saga I realize there has been quite a revolution in my thinking about Jack and Ennis revealing some painful truths. I also realize this has only been possible through the journey this story has taken me on.

For a long time I thought the core of my pain was Jack’s death. If only Jack hadn’t died. I then realized that dead or not Jack and Ennis’ relationship was tearing them both apart and going absolutely nowhere in the process. Towards the end the shadow was threatening to swallow up the “brilliant charge”. That was the real hurt I felt within. After that terrible argument, Annie wrote that they put back the pieces together again. But Ennis’ worst suspicions had been confirmed and Jack’s mighty discontent and frustration was out in the open. Trust and acceptance had gone out the window. The glue holding together any consensus between them must have been pretty fragile.

The whole situation would have had to be renegotiated but would they have been able to do that? The dynamics between them seemed set in concrete over 20 years. In the meantime Jack was hitting the booze and alcoholism was round the corner. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ennis would have begun to hit the bottle as well if things had continued. Wouldn’t he be constantly nagging at Jack with jealous accusations every time they met up? And then AIDS was on the horizon…. The core of their love would always remain – as we see in the Saga, it survived Jack’s death in no uncertain terms – but it just wasn’t going to work out in this lifetime in this place.

Even so, having come to this conclusion, I still relapsed into mourning Jack again and wishing him back. (Old habits die hard!) Now I think wishing him back to what – more suffering and frustration? For those who think it is unrealistic that Ennis moves on from Jack to another relationship but instead perpetually mourns the old one, I ask – don’t you think Ennis would come to realize the impossibility of things the way they were as well? It’s not a question of him saying to himself – I wish I had agreed to live with Jack. In living through the challenges of learning to live with Ellery even under much more favourable circumstances, he would come to realise that the old Ennis would never have been able to do that and at some point he would come to accept that. He would also realize that he could only have continued to be a source of pain to Jack as Jack would also always have been a source of pain for him. Why wish that back and make longing for it the basis of your life?

Once you understand this and come to terms with it, once you stop idealizing the old relationship, you can no longer resent Ennis finding a new life and a new love. If Ennis had been the one to die then Jack would have been freed to find a man less fearful than Ennis and more emotionally well adjusted. Only by seeing Ennis’ armour peeled away layer by layer over the course of the Laramie Saga not only through Jack's death and the intervention of Ellery, but through the events he experiences and his interactions with others, do we understand how far Ennis was imprisoned in his personality and fear. Only through this story have we been able to understand the great distance he had to travel which only reinforces the impossibility of Ennis changing in the old relationship. In understanding this you also can no longer feel such anger at his inability to shift.

Having said all that, I find I am no longer really interested in going over all the old ground of analyzing Jack and Ennis’ relationship or wishing Jack back. I now think about that relationship not with wistfulness but with relief that they were both finally freed.

Those who take no joy in Ennis freeing himself and finding life with a new person and refuse to face uncomfortable facts about Ennis and Jack’s relationship, or even the fact that Jack died, have attacked this story. Whatever their rationalisations, I wonder if they do this because it confronts some painful truths about life and death and relationships they prefer to deny or wish away.

[belbbmfan]

Update to "The Red Stallion"

http://louisev.livejournal.com/140408.html  "Chapter 58:  Clinging"

OMG Louise!
it's friday morning 7.52h and now i have to go to work. Now, how am I going to do that, having just read chapter 58? Hunh? 

But, thank you for writing this amazing, hot, loving chapter! 

Fabienne

[louisev]

The Laramie Saga: confronting some painful truths about Jack and Ennis

Wow, Jo, you have thought deeply through this... and I have to say that I agree.  The baseline assumption I made in writing the Laramie Saga was that Ennis was not going to change without a life-altering tragedy.  That tragedy was provided already, by Annie Proulx:  Jack's sudden, inexplicable death.  We have only a short glimpse of Ennis afterward, but even in those brief glimpses, he outed himself as Jack's lover, to Jack's parents, in the interest of trying to make a final gesture in fulfilling Jack's wishes - to spread his ashes on Brokeback.  But the dissolution of their relationship was in the making, and time, distrust, and fear had worn them both to the quick by the time of their final meeting - they were holding on to the dying corpse of a relationship that Ennis, of the two of them, could not accept nor move forward with.

Hence the two years of grief and depression.  Following his loss he could move neither forward, nor back.  After the sea-change of losing the one man he wanted and did not let himself have, his loss paralyzed him into a long period of inactivity, and only the memory of Jack, the reminder in the form of the journal from Brokeback, reminded him of the poignancy and immediacy of what he once held dear, a glimmer that it was possible for him to find others who were like himself.  Not to replace Jack - but to understand him.  And there is where the new odyssey starts - in seeking an understanding of Jack, he found someone who understood HIM.

Could things have worked out with Jack?  No,  not unless, and until, Ennis went through this sea-change.  Because I chose not to write an alternate-universe in which Jack survived, the only sea-change possible in the canon was the one given:  Jack's death.  It could not have been otherwise without rewriting Annie Proulx's story, and I haven't yet found it in me to do that.

[synne]

Good morning , Loise, everybody,

It’s hard for me to write right after I red last two chapter and all your thoughts here*sighing* , I'll try to add my bit...
I know what it means to meet your beloved three-four  times per year in the middle of nowhere (coincidentally as in the movie), I know very well how much  longing , pain and doubts it does bring between the meetings which kills you slowly but steadily from inside out  and damages all what seems like main relationships around. I know what means to meet your love in wrong time and wrong age, but I know those years of my life were great source for learning how relationship can’t work and  can’t survive .

I read couple of reviews from my country critics about BBM, and curiously, they all agreed in one fact – the movie should be ending  after J/E final meeting , because there already was dead, already was corpse- “corpse of their relationship” as Louise mentioned, so no need for further dramatic end  for effect.
I just wish it were enough for Ennis to realize own mistakes, and he would learn  to accept himself and move forward to genuine relationship even with another man. But this scenario would probably work for different character, not Ennis. Ennis really needed the hardest blow from life – lose Jack forever; otherwise he would be until the end of his life convinced – he only did right decision. ( as always)

No matter how much I love Jack’s character I’m thankful to Louise giving Ennis real life with  person like Ellery ( I already met my) who made him feel loved, needed, secured and who literary gave him a hand in almost everything, who met Ennis in right time.

[louisev]

*typity type type!*

[louisev]

Update to "The Red Stallion"

http://louisev.livejournal.com/140684.html  "Chapter 59:  A New Investigation"

[ranchgal]

Love your newest chapter---very fun read!!
thanks!!

[louisev]

so many wonderful comments, and so much deep thought... I love it.  Thank you all for reading, but even more, for thinking through the larger meaning and value of the Laramie Saga.  It makes me realize why I wrote it, or rather, why I HAD to write it.

[scudder]

What deep, pertinent comments on Ennis and his coming to terms with and finding himself.  Jaack's death was the catalust and Ellery's love was the support in this journey, so beautifully portrayed in the Larramie Saga.

In the canon, Ennis found Jack, but Jack also found Ennis.  A strong catalyst (as Jack's death) was necessary to bring Ennis along on his journey.  But was this the only catalyst?  Jack was involved in the relationship too.

The first story I read began with a powerful interaction (beautifully written) between Jack and Ennis when they met after Ennis' divorce.  Jack seriously proposed suicide for both of them or for himself alone .  To my mind, this was a powerful catalyst to get Ennis to change, and it worked!  The two went on to own the Lazy L Farm in Quanah, Texas.

Other stories showed other motives.  So I don't think Jack's death was necessary to set the process in motion, and I think Jack's love could have been as supportive as Ellery's.

I guess that's what these stories are for, and the LS gives us a great take on what could have been.