Author Topic: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)  (Read 150718 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #300 on: February 24, 2008, 11:08:45 am »
I can't remember when I've been so pleased to welcome someone to the 1,000 posts club, and I'm so happy you made it here Mel! Welcome Melcome, now I'm dancing around like there was an August snowstorm on the mountain!! May there be many more on any ol thread you like! I know you have way more revelations to share with us cause you've kept them bottled up for a long while. And you have a hard head so you can be hit hard and not even feel it!!
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #301 on: February 24, 2008, 04:40:49 pm »
Here's a sentence that is hitting me hard today:

Quote
He had wanted to be a sophomore, felt the word carried a kind of distinction,

Poor Ennis, didn't get to be a sophomore because the transmission went on the pickup truck, and he was pitched into ranch work. Where I went to school, the word sophomore carried no distinction whatsoever, because students entered high school in the 10th grade, so there were no freshmen. Sophomores were at the low end of the totem pole.

Ennis wanted the softness of words and study and learning, but what he got was hard work and privation.  :(
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Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #302 on: February 24, 2008, 06:56:07 pm »
Here's a sentence that is hitting me hard today:

Poor Ennis, didn't get to be a sophomore because the transmission went on the pickup truck, and he was pitched into ranch work. Where I went to school, the word sophomore carried no distinction whatsoever, because students entered high school in the 10th grade, so there were no freshmen. Sophomores were at the low end of the totem pole.

Ennis wanted the softness of words and study and learning, but what he got was hard work and privation.  :(


It is an interesting detail to focus on Lee.  Somehow the idea that Ennis loved the idea of becoming a sophomore (or more generally, the idea of advancing in school) indicates that early on he had high hopes for himself or that when he was young he had a capacity to be a "dreamer" (clearly something usually more readily associated with Jack), which seems to have been beaten down through all the hardships he had to endure just to simply survive once his parents died. 


the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #303 on: March 02, 2008, 11:20:54 am »
This thread is featured on the news banner today!! Yee-haw for offhand revelations! And for the story and movie that inspired 'em!!

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Offline Lynne

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #304 on: October 12, 2008, 06:57:16 pm »
I am now trying to reconcile or resolve Ennis running 'full throttle...money spending' and the story being at least in part about poverty.  I guess I am not seeing a lot of evidence that Ennis (story or movie) is a big spender.  Story!Jack, on the other hand, gradually enjoys a higher standard of living, especially after LD dies, and he gets his vague managerial .  And we see Movie!Jack having nicer trucks and camping gear as time progresses.

So while I understand that Ennis does not have the ambition that Alma wants him to have (to go to work for the power company, etc.) I don't see the full throttle money spending either.  He's concerned about paying his child support.  Maybe it's just that there's never enough.

This post more likely belongs in the thread about BBM being about economics and poverty, but I cannot find it right now...too many political threads to sort through.  If anyone knows offhand where it is, please let me know, or move it for me!
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Offline Lynne

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Re: The Vision Thing
« Reply #305 on: October 12, 2008, 07:02:07 pm »
While Ennis is busy worrying about the bad times to come, Jack is enjoying the present -- a sky so "boneless blue" that he "might drown looking up." Which later, of course, he does.  :'(

I really 'heard' this for the first time, yesterday.  :'( :'(

What a masterpiece.
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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #306 on: October 12, 2008, 07:09:56 pm »
I am now trying to reconcile or resolve Ennis running 'full throttle...money spending' and the story being at least in part about poverty.  I guess I am not seeing a lot of evidence that Ennis (story or movie) is a big spender.  Story!Jack, on the other hand, gradually enjoys a higher standard of living, especially after LD dies, and he gets his vague managerial .  And we see Movie!Jack having nicer trucks and camping gear as time progresses.


I think this is a fine place for your offhand revelation, Lynne! Story Ennis could be impulsive and spend money when he wanted something, and story Ennis could loll naked on a bed at the Siesta Motel talking to his lover for over an hour, not like movie Ennis. For the movie, I think Heath, Ang, and the scriptwriters emphasized the differences in the two men because, well, opposites attract and it works well with the yin/yang theme. But Annie Proulx's depiction of the men is more subtle. She portrayed them more as two kindred spirits against the world whereas in the movie they are more like two different people who fall in love despite their differences.
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Offline Lynne

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #307 on: October 12, 2008, 07:17:19 pm »
I think this is a fine place for your offhand revelation, Lynne! Story Ennis could be impulsive and spend money when he wanted something, and story Ennis could loll naked on a bed at the Siesta Motel talking to his lover for over an hour, not like movie Ennis. For the movie, I think Heath, Ang, and the scriptwriters emphasized the differences in the two men because, well, opposites attract and it works well with the yin/yang theme. But Annie Proulx's depiction of the men is more subtle. She portrayed them more as two kindred spirits against the world whereas in the movie they are more like two different people who fall in love despite their differences.

Thanks, FriendLee.  I guess I am still seeing inconsistencies in StoryEnnis' money spending.  They did splurge on the hotel Siesta, and he did quit his jobs in the old days to be with Jack.  But the postcard at the end was only 30 cents and one was enough and he didn't need more than he had when Alma, Jr. visited.  Maybe the impulsive spending was tempered with age, as evidenced by him stressing his child support payments and being unable to just quit the jobs, like in the old days.  I see very few examples, tho, of early Ennis spending money.  After all, he worked weekends at a ranch when he was on the road crew to be able to keep his horses.  I guess the horses could be considered a luxury.  I just don't see that he had much.
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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #308 on: October 12, 2008, 08:44:19 pm »
You bet, those horses were a luxury Lynne! I was just visiting Offline Chuck's neighbors in the Medicine Bow area of Wyoming, and they got rid of their horses because each one ate a $8 bale of hay every day. Plus horses are always injuring themselves and needing vet treatments. The neighbor also mentioned that there was nothing you could do with an older horse but keep feeding it until it died. No more glue factories, he said. I'm sure Jess could elaborate on this.
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Offline Penthesilea

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Re: getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
« Reply #309 on: October 14, 2008, 08:49:59 am »
Thanks, FriendLee.  I guess I am still seeing inconsistencies in StoryEnnis' money spending.  They did splurge on the hotel Siesta, and he did quit his jobs in the old days to be with Jack.  But the postcard at the end was only 30 cents and one was enough and he didn't need more than he had when Alma, Jr. visited.  Maybe the impulsive spending was tempered with age, as evidenced by him stressing his child support payments and being unable to just quit the jobs, like in the old days.  I see very few examples, tho, of early Ennis spending money.  After all, he worked weekends at a ranch when he was on the road crew to be able to keep his horses.  I guess the horses could be considered a luxury.  I just don't see that he had much.

In the red part, you're mixing movie stuff into your interpretation of Story!Ennis. Alma Jr. didn't come to visit in the story.

But still I agree with you. The full-throttle... money part of the short story somehow seems to contradict Proulx's words at the beginning: "...highschool dropouts with no prospects, brought up to hard work and privation, ... inured to the stoic life."



BTW, the sentence by Ennis in the movie "You don't got nothin', you don't need nothin'." is (IMO) another good example for the POML synergy. I think this sentence is Lee's (Ossana's/McMurtry's) interpretation of Proulx's inured to the stoic life.