Book Discussion: Brokeback Mountain

[Front-Ranger]

For our next book discussion, here's a novel (he,he) idea. Let's discuss Brokeback Mountain! This was first published in October, 1997, in The New Yorker Magazine, as a story. The author is Annie Proulx.

It begins with a prologue which, for some reason, was left off of the story as published in The New Yorker. Annie Proulx said that it was left off by mistake. The first two sentences:

Ennis del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames. The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft.

[Front-Ranger]

From the story's prologue:

[Ennis] gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan; the flame swathes it in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on.

This starts the story out on a depressing note. Ennis is a washed up guy who shuffles, settles for warmed over leftover coffee, pees in the sink, and hurriedly pulls on worn boots. The only thing that stands out here is the flame that swathes the coffee in its blue flame. Blue is a reminder of Jack, and the flame tells us that Ennis still carries the torch for Jack after all these years.

[fernly]

The word swathe has some interesting multiple meanings: to wrap, to bandage, to enfold, to constrict. All of which could be applied to the effects on Ennis of the torch (of love, of faithfulness) he carries for Jack.
There's also a visual rhyme that Casey identified at Lightning Flat. The five-pointed star shaped object in the barn we see as Ennis goes up to the house, is a part of swather - a machine that reaps ripe grain and lays it flat in windrows.

[Jeff Wrangler]

The only thing that stands out here is the flame that swathes the coffee in its blue flame. Blue is a reminder of Jack, and the flame tells us that Ennis still carries the torch for Jack after all these years.

Is it? The flame a reminder of Jack, I mean? Or is that "reading back" into the story from the film? Just wonderin'. ... 

[Front-Ranger]

Ha! I love ya Jeff, you're always keepin me honest! Yes, Jack is associated with the color blue in the story as in the movie. A couple of examples: Jack takes into his coat a little blue heeler runt, because "Jack loved a little dog." Later, Ennis avoids looking at Jack's jaw, bruised blue from Ennis's dirty punch on their last day on the mountain.

More? Help me out here, everyone!!

[Front-Ranger]

Okay, there's the line, "...but the boneless blue was so deep, said Jack, that he might drown looking up."

 

[Front-Ranger]

Lureen thought Jack's favourite place, Brokeback Mountain, was where "bluebirds sing and there's a whiskey spring." In Jack's closet are two pairs of blue jeans, crease ironed (ouch!), and folded over a metal hanger. What's interesting is that there's a photo of a movie star on his wall, but all the blue ink is gone, "the skin tone gone magenta." All the blue has drained away. Where are the colors? They live on in Ennis's dreams, "lurid colors that gave the dreams the flavor of comic obscenity."

What? We're at the end of the story already! Jeff, you trickster!!

[Jeff Wrangler]

I always liked the line about Jack tucking the puppy in his coat "for he loved a little dog." That line always just struck me somehow. I guess maybe that qualifies as one of those "offhand revelations" that "hit hard," hunh? 

[Front-Ranger]

The word swathe has some interesting multiple meanings: to wrap, to bandage, to enfold, to constrict. All of which could be applied to the effects on Ennis of the torch (of love, of faithfulness) he carries for Jack.
There's also a visual rhyme that Casey identified at Lightning Flat. The five-pointed star shaped object in the barn we see as Ennis goes up to the house, is a part of swather - a machine that reaps ripe grain and lays it flat in windrows.

Fernly, that's very perceptive. Farm machinery plays an interesting role in this story. In addition to the swather, a baler also plays a role--that's a machine that ties wire around hay bales. And there's also the big, big farm equipment that Jack's father-in-law sells.

[Front-Ranger]

I'm struck by the many times that the term grey is used in connection with Ennis. In the prologue (see above) and also during the lake scene: "Ennis stood as if heart-shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the ground on his knees."