(http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa35/ayleeno/proulx-1-sized.jpg)
"There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story. They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for 'fixing' the story. They certainly don't get the message that if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it."
Quite a slam of (some) fanfic!
It's interesting to contrast this with her quotation on our home page:
"It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts." - Annie Proulx
2:53 PM - ’Brokeback’ author says says film is source of ’constant irritation’
By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
When the story was published in 1999, it was praised for its delicate handling of homophobia in the ranching country of Wyoming. But her fans feel she could have gone further in her descriptions of the love shared by the two central characters.
What I think she is not seeing is something that is endemic to good story telling, that the characters take on a life of their own, for better or worse.
Of course Jack and Ennis belong to the world now.
Exactly.
It is sort of like children. You can keep them at home for just so long, but eventually they grow up and leave.
Seems Annie doesn't want to know what they've been up to!
Most of these "fix-it" tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after.
Of course Jack and Ennis belong to the world now.
But, Annie's reaction of course is upsetting to read about, and it's been something I've been thinking about a bit all day. Most of you know that I'm an art historian by profession, so I have some strong feelings about this subject. On one level it's not hard to imagine her sense of protectiveness over her story. But, my feeling is that she should relax about it a bit. I really do think things like the phenomenon of fanfic should not be a surprise to her and should not be perceived as a threat (or something she needs to be defensive about).
Tell you what, this is very thoughtful, Amanda, but I have a suspicion Annie's reaction isn't really about "art," or protectiveness, or even necessarily copyright infringement. I have a sneaking suspicion Annie's reaction is really about her feeling aggrieved and put-upon because she has to deal with this tripe, or, worse yet, merde, coming to her unsolicited, and from people who seem to expect her actually to praise them for their endeavors, or so she seems to be saying. Anyway, what kind of person presumes to tell an author that he could write her story better than she could? :o
I think Lynne's "edit" is a very astute observation: Doesn't Annie have "people" (publisher, secretary, assistant) who can deal with this stuff so she doesn't have to waste her time on it?
Like I said, readers are an author's bread and butter. It is really a shame if she has gotten so famous that if someone writes something because the story moved him or her to and she dismisses it as tripe or merde. Certainly doesn't endear me to who and make me want to seek out more of her stuff to read.
On another list I am on, authors have been commenting on getting email from readers and how/when they should respond. The overall consensus is that such letters are wonderful and to be treasured and the authors respond to every single one.
At what point does an author warrant "people"? Again, from my other discussion group, many have lamented the fact that it is next to impossible to make a living as a fiction writer these days, and the Stephen Kings of the world should thank their lucky stars every day of the week. Annie might want to remember that, too, and keep in mind that fans like us have made it possible for her to own homes in Wyoming and Newfoundland and to be be to pay "people" in her entourage.
L
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.
Side question: Does anybody know whether Baum's Oz books are still under copyright or have they entered the public domain? I just got to wondering about that since Amanda brought up Wicked.
Years ago, I read part of a book called Was. It was really compelling and interesting, but incredibly depressing, which is why I didn't finish it. In it, Dorothy was a clumsy, socially inept orphan who comes to live with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry in this tiny, bleak, gray, isolated house on the windswept Kansas prairie. Em and Henry are grim and taciturn. Henry starts molesting Dorothy. Frank Baum is her schoolteacher. He feels sorry for Dorothy and starts making up lovely escape fantasies about Oz to cheer her up.You mean the politician?
This alternated with chapters about Judy Garland as a child and a man with AIDS in contemporary times.
But the Dorothy part was the most interesting. I could imagine it happening just like that. And it made me think of all the miserable, helpless kids growing up in bleak, isolated houses across the country and what their lives would have been like in the days before anybody ever talked about sexual and physical abuse. (Though of course, it still happens now.)
Well, way OT! Sorry. I just like to think of Oz as sort of America's very own fairytale (as opposed to the other, Old World ones). There are so many dimensions to it, endlessly interesting. There's also the one where the Scarecrow represents the farmer, the Tin Man is the working man, and the lion is William Jennings Bryan ...
I think the reviewer has missed the point. The problem with these people who send their work to Annie Proulx is that they want her to respond or review it and praise them. Annie Proulx said to finish the story in your own life, not to escape your life by rewriting the story. Brokeback Mountain is not Star Trek, it is not escapism. It is an account of how things were and are, not how they should be or we wish it to be. All we got now is Brokeback Mountain, that is the truth that we must know, realize, and accept, and stand it, if we do not know anything else. "If you can't fix it you've got to stand it." Those are the last words in the story.
I think the reviewer has missed the point. The problem with these people who send their work to Annie Proulx is that they want her to respond or review it and praise them. Annie Proulx said to finish the story in your own life, not to escape your life by rewriting the story. Brokeback Mountain is not Star Trek, it is not escapism. It is an account of how things were and are, not how they should be or we wish it to be. All we got now is Brokeback Mountain, that is the truth that we must know, realize, and accept, and stand it, if we do not know anything else. "If you can't fix it you've got to stand it." Those are the last words in the story.
Well, I think the thing is that fanfic writers don't do anything to diminish the original story. It obviously stand on it's own and I don't think any fanfic writers think they're competing with Annie or even "re-writing" her story. My sense is that there's a deep reverence for the original writing.
There simply is no way for Proulx, or any author, to retain such possessiveness over a published story and especially one that's so popular.
No, there isn't, but why should she have to put up with total strangers expecting her to praise them for "fixing" her own story?
Now, this I completely agree with. It seems very, very odd to me that a fanfic writer would want to send Annie their stories or expect any kind of feedback from her.
Barbara Cartland she certainly is not, thank goodness.
:laugh: :laugh: :-\ Well, that certainly is a pretty god-awful excerpt Bud. Yikes!
But in any case her quoted comment wasn't exactly diplomatic. ...
;D
Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property
beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can
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.
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.
"With their eyes closed, they shared an intimate moment of united longing, pain and beauty that would take a place in eternity"
Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held."
"Your eyes are like the stars. Your touch is like the sun"
...both high school dropout country boys, brought up to hard work and privation, both rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic life.
"I like doin it with women, yeah, but Jesus H., ain't nothin like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinkin about you. You do it with other guys? Jack?"
During the day, Ennis looked across a great gulf and sometimes saw Jack, a small dot moving across a high meadow an an insect moves across a tablecloth. Jack in his dark camp saw Ennis as night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain.
...Jack, in their contortionistic grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennnis's nose hard with his knee. He had staunched the blood which was everywhere, all over both of them, but the staunching hadn't held because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid the ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded.
"They painted beautiful, plunged creative. The kingfisher, silent, did not remove his belt".
Ennis, riding against the wind back to the sheep in the treacherous, drunken light, thought he'd never had such a good time, felt he could paw the white out of the moon.
"Everything about Jack and his jeans disturbed and tormented Ennis that summer of '63 until all he could think of or see was blue."
Beachcombing on a small island in the Mediterranean while drinking hard cider sounds like some high-class entertainment to me.
Very interesting article about Annie in LA Times - with many references to Brokeback Mountain:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-proulx18-2008oct18,0,3383917.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-proulx18-2008oct18,0,3383917.story)
From the Los Angeles Times
COLUMN ONE
Annie Proulx no longer at home on the range
The 'Brokeback Mountain' author has 'had enough' of Wyoming, her prime subject for the last decade.
By Susan Salter Reynolds
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 18, 2008
[email protected]
Beachcombing on a small island in the Mediterranean while drinking hard cider sounds like some high-class entertainment to me.
Hard cider in the Mediterranean? I think it's called calvados. You can see a bit of Jack in her there...and of Heath in the purple socks.
I was going to say Meryl. ;)
I was going to say Meryl. ;)
Yes, I see Meryl in her, especially around the mouth.
I was going to say Meryl. ;)
(http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h269/merylmarie/Family/Highschoolportrait1967_zps304de1d1.jpg)
Very interesting article about Annie in LA Times - with many references to Brokeback Mountain:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-proulx18-2008oct18,0,3383917.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-et-proulx18-2008oct18,0,3383917.story)
I think I agree with you. The hairdo? Not so much. ;D
(http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h269/merylmarie/Family/Highschoolportrait1967_zps304de1d1.jpg)