Author Topic: I suspect....backstories  (Read 6118 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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I suspect....backstories
« on: December 11, 2006, 02:42:56 pm »
Let's collect BBM backstories, shall we? My first one is about Old Man Twist (OMT). I got to thinkin about him over a tin cup of whiskey one day, and I decided not to drink Scotch whiskey any more, because OMT is obviously a Scotch/Irish/English skinflint (I can say this because I am a S/I/E skinflint myself) and Jack is so not his child. Even Ennis could tell you that--he didn't see any of Jack in either OMT or his wife, Mary Twist. Jack was actually the child of Mary's brother Harold and a young woman of French/Native American descent. Jack was born during WWII when Harold was off fighting in Europe, and his mother ran off, whereupon Mary took the boy in and raised him as her own (she was a virgin, Mary was, of course). But OMT never accepted the boy, never shared his tricks, never came to see him ride. That's why I'll be drinking bourbon whiskey from now on.

« Last Edit: December 11, 2006, 08:19:46 pm by Front-Ranger »
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2006, 07:36:37 pm »
For an Ennis backstory, I recommend Fernly's "Dead Horse Road." Yes, it's fanfiction, but so would be any imagined backstories, wouldn't they? Anyone interested can find a link over on the fanfiction forum. "Dead Horse Road" hit me almost as hard as Annie Proulx's original.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2006, 08:20:52 pm »
Thanks, Jeff. It would be great to have a link to the abstract here. Can you provide one?
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Offline welliwont

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2006, 01:51:00 am »


Jack was actually the child of Mary's brother Harold and a young woman of French/Native American descent. Jack was born during WWII when Harold was off fighting in Europe, and his mother ran off, whereupon Mary took the boy in and raised him as her own (she was a virgin, Mary was, of course). But OMT never accepted the boy, never shared his tricks, never came to see him ride. That's why I'll be drinking bourbon whiskey from now on.


That's quite the imagination you got goin' there Lee!   ;D  How about you open yourself a Live Journal account and join the fanfic bandwagon?   ;) ;D  I can beta for you (don't worry, you'll learn the lingo, I'll teach ya!)   :D

J
Then the clouds opened up and God said, "I hate you, Alfafa."

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2006, 12:12:03 pm »
I could never begin to learn the lingo, Jane, but thank you kindly anyway. So you know from the performance thread about the whole Uncle Harold backstory I've dreamed up, but briefly I'll recap. Harold, or Hal as he's called by his FRiends, first went up on Brokeback in the early 1940s with a young man named Joe Aguirre. No one knows what happened that summer, but when the season ended, Joe and Hal parted never to get back together again. Hal had a brief affair before shipping off to Europe and was injured in the Great War. He returned to Wyoming with a limp and bunked at his sis's house in Lightning Flat, but moved away when he caught the ire of OMT once too often. The product of his rebound affair was, of course, Jack.
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Offline Kelda

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2006, 09:54:00 am »
Let's collect BBM backstories, shall we? My first one is about Old Man Twist (OMT). I got to thinkin about him over a tin cup of whiskey one day, and I decided not to drink Scotch whiskey any more, because OMT is obviously a Scotch/Irish/English skinflint (I can say this because I am a S/I/E skinflint myself) and Jack is so not his child. Even Ennis could tell you that--he didn't see any of Jack in either OMT or his wife, Mary Twist. Jack was actually the child of Mary's brother Harold and a young woman of French/Native American descent. Jack was born during WWII when Harold was off fighting in Europe, and his mother ran off, whereupon Mary took the boy in and raised him as her own (she was a virgin, Mary was, of course). But OMT never accepted the boy, never shared his tricks, never came to see him ride. That's why I'll be drinking bourbon whiskey from now on.



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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #6 on: December 13, 2006, 09:56:41 am »
Thru and thru, Kelda. My ancestors include George Stephenson, builder of the first locomotive, and the Lighthouse Stephensons and, indirectly, RLS.

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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #7 on: December 13, 2006, 02:56:13 pm »
So, we need a lot more backstories to flesh out the short story, since Annie didn't write a novel. How did Ennis come to know Alma, for instance, and what role did their siblings play in all that? Why was Lureen so hot for Jack that night? Whatever happened to the little boy with glasses at the fireworks display? What diid the Basque do during the off-season? Where did the jolly preacher end up after he kissed the brides once too often? What happened when the older guy got up the courage to go talk to one of the pool players? How did the lady get all those tattoos? Where were Trudy and Elizabeth going anyway? Who did Troy finally hook up with? What about all those cowboys who went to Denver???????

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Offline Katie77

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #8 on: December 13, 2006, 04:30:14 pm »
So, we need a lot more backstories to flesh out the short story, since Annie didn't write a novel. How did Ennis come to know Alma, for instance, and what role did their siblings play in all that? Why was Lureen so hot for Jack that night? Whatever happened to the little boy with glasses at the fireworks display? What diid the Basque do during the off-season? Where did the jolly preacher end up after he kissed the brides once too often? What happened when the older guy got up the courage to go talk to one of the pool players? How did the lady get all those tattoos? Where were Trudy and Elizabeth going anyway? Who did Troy finally hook up with? What about all those cowboys who went to Denver???????



These, and a thousand other questions and answers that never got explained in the story.......

I know I have hit this subject many times before, about the writing abilities of Annie Proulx......my opinion is, and has always been, that she failed.....all she could manage to accomplish was a "draft" of a story, not a complete story....I wish she had given that "draft" to a real author to be completed as it deserved to be completed.........
Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect.

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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: I suspect....backstories
« Reply #9 on: December 13, 2006, 04:41:31 pm »
Thanks for opining that. What I was actually asking was for readers of the book to imagine what might have happened to other characters besides Ennis and Jack. Care to venture a scenario on just one of the questions asked above? I'm sure with your far superior intellect we will soon be breathlessly reading pullet-surprise worthy material.

Oh, and also, over on Anything Goes we are discussing one of Annie Proulx's book-length works, Postcards, that goes into great detail on the five members of the Blood family. I am sure you will want to delve into this work and critique it to prove what a second-rate author she is! Your participation is welcome.

"chewing gum and duct tape"