Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Interesting observations about the short story
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 20, 2006, 02:49:14 pm ---This is so interesting and I'm so glad U brought it up. The topic of word choices in the book and movie is deep and we have hardly even scratched the surface. As I recall from reading the story, Jack loved to use big words. He would say "I'm commutin four hours a day" and would often get them wrong, such as asphixiate (as U point out), athaletes, and vertebrates. I attribute this to Jack always wanting to better himself, to leave the poverty-ridden confines of his youth. And, as Jake said, he always tried really hard in everything he did.
--- End quote ---
About all I got time for (right now) is makin' a livin' (I'm at work), but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to mention that I've always thought "commuting" was a funny concept to be coming from a Wyomin' ranch kid in 1963.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 20, 2006, 03:25:18 pm ---About all I got time for (right now) is makin' a livin' (I'm at work), but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to mention that I've always thought "commuting" was a funny concept to be coming from a Wyomin' ranch kid in 1963.
--- End quote ---
Me, too! And that's an excellent point, F-R - you're right - I think all those usages are just Jack trying really hard to be something better - not so much than he is, but than he assumes (and is right) that the world thinks he is.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on July 20, 2006, 10:47:06 am ---
That section of the story--Ennis waking up in the trailer, urinating in the sink, boiling the stale coffee--was not a part of the story as originally published in The New Yorker. My understanding for, like, six months, is that it was written later and added on when the story was included in Front Range.
--- End quote ---
Hey, Jeff--
According to one of our former members who has since moved on, the 'prologue' (which I also have always seen italicized) was part of Proulx's original copyrighted text, but was omitted at the request of the editor(s) of The New Yorker when they accepted the story for publication in 1997. This portion of the story was reincorporated when the tale was next published in Close Range: Wyoming Stories. How this fellow knew this I can't rightly remember, nor do I recall an explanation for the putative editorial decision. As this fellow no longer has an active account with us, searching for the relevant post containing this information would present something of a challenge.
The tone of the story changes immensely with the inclusion of the prologue. Without it, the ending offers a feeling of horror, suggesting a kind of emotional stasis for Ennis not unlike what one might associate with hellish or purgatorial experiences. With the opening episode intact, the brutality of Ennis's situation is softened somewhat, reinforcing that, amidst his grief and solitude, the ageing cowboy does sustain some sense of pleasure and relief through his memory of Jack.
Front-Ranger:
I have the same recollection about the on-again off-again prologue as you do, Scott. Was it in the "Getting Movied" essay in Story to Screenplay that Proulx talked about that? Can't recall...
I have never actually read the prologue, but I thought it had kind of negative tone... didn't it mention the wind slamming into Ennis's trailer like a load of dirt, as if he were being buried alive? But I know the New Yorker piece definitely had the words "joy and release" at the end, so I read it with a little frisson of hope.
Jeff Wrangler:
Now that you mention it, Scott, I have a vague memory of reading that post about the prologue being "cut" by The New Yorker, but then I also have a vague memory of that point being disputed, that, indeed, it was written later. I need to look in my "Documents" to see whether I might have saved anything about this. I'm sure it doesn't come "right from the source" (Annie Proulx) in "Getting Movied."
???
The prologue does, indeed, describe the wind hitting the trailer like that, but I always feel that, nevertheless, the prologue adds a hopeful note because it describes Ennis as "suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream."
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