Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Annie Proulx's still pissed...
LauraGigs:
--- Quote from: Ellemeno on June 13, 2009, 05:30:20 am ---She's not only cranky and cantankerous, she's even crochety.
--- End quote ---
And a crabass. And a curmudgeon. ;)
optom3:
What I don't understand is why Annie P. gets so annoyed when people take her story so much to heart. Is it not every author's dream to feel they have connected with their reader on such a deeply fundamental level?
Maybe she thought that the story would only affect gay men, but it spread way beyond those narrow perimeters.
Personally, if I felt that my words had so deeply impacted on my fellow human's lives I would be ecstatic. Don't we all deep down wish that along life's rocky road, we made a difference, that our existence made someone else's life better.
That is certainly my deepest wish.I don't want fame or fortune, I want to feel that however many years amounts to my lifespan, I have made someone feel better, happier, more at ease. etc.
My 1st encounter with BBM was the story not the film. I sobbed until my eyes were red raw after that first reading. I became like a woman possessed, I could not read it often enough. I was like an addict craving my next fix. I read it in bed, in the bath, whenever I had the chance.If I missed a day without reading it, I felt deprived. So much so, that I delayed seeing the film, no way could it do justice to Proulx's words. I dithered and prevaricated, a million reasons I would not see the film. I could not bear for actors to come in and invade the space in my head where Jack and Ennis existed, it was sacrosanct. I guarded those two as if they were my own flesh and blood. The story had taken on a momentum all its own and I truly felt that to trust it to anyone to make Jack and Ennis real, would be like trusting a stranger with my children.
It was the man who has had my heart for 13 years now, who finally persuaded me. It was his gay brother who had originally introduced the S.S to us both. My lover had fallen as badly as I for the story, he went to see it first with his brother and after that he was insistant that I saw the film.I have never admitted this before but I went to see the film with him. I was left in pieces and knew instantly why my love had wanted me to see it. To see Ennis come to life was to face up to the fact that I was Ennis in all bit gender.
My solution to all of this was to move thousands of miles away, to America and so deny where my heart really was. It was the actions of an insane woman, love is not inversely proportional to distance.Quite the reverse, so now I and all my family live with the consequences of my actions and reactions. I am just happy that for everyone bar me, the move has been a blessing. Nigel has come to realise through many bends in the road who he is and is all the better for that. The kids, even James are settled and as content if not more so, than they were in England.
I still struggle daily with my Ennis type actions. So to Annie I would say, to have impacted so very deeply on just one person's life is incredible, to multiply that by a factor I can only guess at, surely has to be a writer's dream, not nightmare.
All I want now, is to never have my husband feel less than because of me, and to pray with every cell in my body that my children find love wherever and hold it so tightly that they will never feel how I do.
O.K I have wandered slightly off topic, but I feel so deeply that Proulx has achieved an author's dream. Certainly some of the attention is not what she would wish, but there you are, it is what it is. George Michael once sang, " turn a different corner and we never would have met" I certainly would never met some of the wonderful people here, had I not read, "Ennis Del Mar wakes before five", and carried on until, "and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it"
loneleeb3:
Awwwwww Fi, your words bring me to tears!
I can so relate to everything you have said.
Ain't no reigns on this friend!
Shuggy:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on May 04, 2009, 10:30:04 pm ---She's a plainspoken, forthright person who feels no call to be all Mary Poppinsy toward these people.
--- End quote ---
That's ironic - I assume you mean Julie-Andrews-as-Mary-Poppins-in-the-filmy towards them. Mary Poppins in the book - I nearly wrote "the real Mary Poppins" was very like the real Annie Proulx.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: optom3 on June 13, 2009, 04:04:55 pm ---What I don't understand is why Annie P. gets so annoyed when people take her story so much to heart. Is it not every author's dream to feel they have connected with their reader on such a deeply fundamental level?
--- End quote ---
Actually AP DOES appreciate the critical acclaim for the story and the way it has changed lives. Many people have written to her about their reactions after reading the story and she has answered many letters (she has very tiny handwriting). What she doesn't appreciate is right-wing Christian fundamentalists stalking her and buzzing her house with their planes; people who write with demands, weird requests, or sending manuscripts for her to read and critique; and fanfiction writers who steal her intellectual property.
--- Quote from: optom3 on June 13, 2009, 04:04:55 pm --- ... I delayed seeing the film, no way could it do justice to Proulx's words. I dithered and prevaricated, a million reasons I would not see the film. I could not bear for actors to come in and invade the space in my head where Jack and Ennis existed, it was sacrosanct. I guarded those two as if they were my own flesh and blood. The story had taken on a momentum all its own and I truly felt that to trust it to anyone to make Jack and Ennis real, would be like trusting a stranger with my children.
--- End quote ---
That was me as well. I didn't see the film until January of 2006, when my daughter dragged me to it.
--- Quote from: optom3 on June 13, 2009, 04:04:55 pm ---George Michael once sang, " turn a different corner and we never would have met" I certainly would never met some of the wonderful people here, had I not read, "Ennis Del Mar wakes before five", and carried on until, "and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it"
--- End quote ---
That is sure the truth!
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