Annie Proulx: Fine Just The Way It Is, Wyoming Stories 3

[CellarDweller]

I got my copy today while I was shopping.   

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Have you read any of it yet? I re-read Them Old Cowboy Songs over the weekend. They have been discussed muchly here already, but there were two lines in it that stuck out to me as a Brokie:

"There is no happiness  like that of a young couple in a little house they have built themselves in a place of beauty and solitude."

pg. 50, and;

"It's. I ain't ever been. Loved. I just can't hardly stand it--" (Italics is Proulx's)

pg. 55

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Last night I read The Sagebrush Kid, which is dedicated to George Jones.

Now one could probably correctly assume this is the George Jones she is refering to, which I don't quite understand but never mind.

This very short story features Bill and Mizpah, who operate a stage coach station who adopt a sage bush as their surrogate child and a Calcutta born Indian named R. Singh, who is living among the Souix. Shades of Stephen King here, that I have felt for a while Proulx has some strange connection of language and ideas with. Kind of a Maine thing.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

The Great Divide falls right in the middle of the book.

This story follows the marriage of Hi and Helen between the two world wars. I found myself comparing their existance to that of my own grand parents, people with big ideas and no experence. They fall back on the now closed myth of the frontier and leave their home in Iowa

Proulx makes reference in this story to a car, and Essex, the only other time I have heard of it was in Flannery O'Conner's story Wise Blood, in both cases the car is second hand.

A warning to the reader: there is a difficult to read part about wild horses. They get their revenge in a way, but as things go with revenge, it victimizes the wrong person.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I have been thinking about Deep-Blood-Greasy-Bowl for a few days, waiting for the revelation as to its purpose.

Proulx prefaces the story with the comment that while they were building "our" new house, workmen uncovered evidence of prehistoric habitation. She ties this in with the local geography and tells a tale of a Native American tribe in the days before horses charging a heard of Buffalo to their death off a nearby cliff.

It might resonate more with someone that is unfamiliar with the practice. I had first learned about it at Ulm Piscun in Montana when I visited in 2000. There is also another site where this was done in Alberta, called "Head Bashed In", it is not far from Cowley.

It was a very involved process, and Proulx gives it a good treatment. It reminded me of her earlier carrier writing technical manuals and descriptive pieces for small publications. It ties in nicely with her own stewardship of her piece of the earth. It shows us that xwé:wamənk (Munsee for Wyoming) was a rough place to live long before the white folk and their sheep showed up.

[CellarDweller]

Last night I read The Sagebrush Kid, which is dedicated to George Jones.

Now one could probably correctly assume this is the George Jones she is refering to, which I don't quite understand but never mind.

This very short story features Bill and Mizpah, who operate a stage coach station who adopt a sage bush as their surrogate child and a Calcutta born Indian named R. Singh, who is living among the Souix. Shades of Stephen King here, that I have felt for a while Proulx has some strange connection of language and ideas with. Kind of a Maine thing.

This was the story that Annie read to us last year in NYC.  Loved it then, love it now!

[Shakesthecoffecan]

In Swamp Mischief we are visited again by our old friends, The Devil and his assistant, Duane Fork.

In it we learn that Satan does have an email address: [email protected] but like many of us, his emails tend to be spam.

Bored and wanting to cause some mischief on Earth, he creats a flock of pterosaurses at a national park, but in the tension betwixt the evolved world and the world of spiritual myth, the details of diet undo the operations. Proulx maintains the Devil is deffinatly a western figure, having left his name in so many places.

My favorite line in the story: "No Canadian stuff today. I'm in no mood for their so called civility."

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I am in the home stretch now with FJTWII.

The next to the last story, Testamony of the Donkey, uuuuh, it is classic Proulx, if there is such a thing.

Marc and Catlin live together in a trailer in the rural landscape. We are treated to a background of their lives, and overview of their relationship and then half way thru, the direction turns 90 degrees. It is an ominious turn, and the reader knows exactly where they are headed, but man what a ride! It is flat out horrifying. I was glued to the book, page after page, I read it as the light died and hardly noticed.

This is so much shades of Postcards, Jewel Blood trying to cross a creek in the snow, OMG, this one will stay with me a long time.

[retropian]

YAY! I'm looking forward to reading it. I like how many of her previous stories have a wry black humor present. Her sense of humor doesn't soften the stories. She can be funny but not sentimental.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

YAY! I'm looking forward to reading it. I like how many of her previous stories have a wry black humor present. Her sense of humor doesn't soften the stories. She can be funny but not sentimental.

Hey Ian, have you been able to read the two stories that have been published in the New Yorker?