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Packs a punch for a short story. Heartbreaking, but wonderfully written.
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Wyoming Stories
Brokeback Mountain
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Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeply catches them that summer.
Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that's what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it. -- excerpt from book's dustjacket
Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that's what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it. -- excerpt from book's dustjacket
64 pages, Hardcover
First published October 13,1997
This edition
- Format
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64 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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January 1, 1997 by Scribner
- ISBN
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9780739462164
- ASIN
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0739462164
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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Ennis Del Mar
A rough-mannered, paycheck-to-paycheck ranch worker. Enniss parents died in an auto accident when he was young, and he was raised by his older brother and sister. Although he falls in love with Jack Twist during their summer on Brokeback Mountain, he marr...
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Alma Beers
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About the author
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Edna Annie Proulx (Chinese:安妮 普鲁) is an American journalist and author. Her second novel, The Shipping News (1993), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction in 1994. Her short story "Brokeback Mountain" was adapted as an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award-winning major motion picture released in 2005. Brokeback Mountain received massive critical acclaim and went on to be nominated for a leading eight Academy Awards, winning three of them. (However, the movie did not win Best Picture, a situation with which Proulx made public her disappointment.) She won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel, Postcards.
She has written most of her stories and books simply as Annie Proulx, but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.
She has written most of her stories and books simply as Annie Proulx, but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.
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Community Reviews
Rating(3.8 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
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I picked this up at the library last night because it was a tiny book, perfect for today's lunch time read.
I'm ashamed to say that I attempted to watch the film, but fell asleep about 45 minutes in. Now that I've read this story, I'm going to revisit the film.
This is the first time I've read Annie Proulx. It is amazing how much story she covers in so few pages. Her spare prose, concise style and quiet intensity really worked for me.
An absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking love story! Makes me want to crack open a bottle of whiskey and roll a joint.
I'm ashamed to say that I attempted to watch the film, but fell asleep about 45 minutes in. Now that I've read this story, I'm going to revisit the film.
This is the first time I've read Annie Proulx. It is amazing how much story she covers in so few pages. Her spare prose, concise style and quiet intensity really worked for me.
An absolutely beautiful, heartbreaking love story! Makes me want to crack open a bottle of whiskey and roll a joint.
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4,5 *
#nestórias
Mas antes que conseguisse sair da carrinha, a tentar perceber se era um ataque cardíaco ou uma raiva incendiária a transbordar, já Ennis se pusera de pé e, como um cabide que se estica para se arrombar um carro e depois se retorce para voltar à sua forma inicial, eles retomaram as coisas praticamente onde as tinham deixado, porque o que tinham dito não era novidade. Nada acabava, nada começava, nada se resolvia.
Philippe Besson e André Aciman teriam imenso a aprender com Annie Proulx. Sem clichés, sem floreados, sem pretensiosismo nem lamechices. Uma história de amor entre dois homens com economia de palavras mas não de emoções.
#nestórias
Mas antes que conseguisse sair da carrinha, a tentar perceber se era um ataque cardíaco ou uma raiva incendiária a transbordar, já Ennis se pusera de pé e, como um cabide que se estica para se arrombar um carro e depois se retorce para voltar à sua forma inicial, eles retomaram as coisas praticamente onde as tinham deixado, porque o que tinham dito não era novidade. Nada acabava, nada começava, nada se resolvia.
Philippe Besson e André Aciman teriam imenso a aprender com Annie Proulx. Sem clichés, sem floreados, sem pretensiosismo nem lamechices. Uma história de amor entre dois homens com economia de palavras mas não de emoções.
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Annie Proulx transports us to Wyoming and gives us a sense of what it's like to live there. Then, she weaves a story of the love between two men. It felt like a tragedy, all the things unspoken and the road not taken. Beautifully done and heartbreaking.
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Sometimes you read a short story that falls a bit short of expectations. Because it would have been a better, or more complete story if it had been longer. This is not how this short story made me feel. In fact, more than sixty pages of this might have been too much. I only wished I had read it before I watched the amazing movie adaptation.
This story, as Julie so cleverly phrased it, is about being in love with someone you can’t have, and few feelings are as violent as that. And I’m willing to bet that few places made you feel the burn of that feeling more than Wyoming in the 1960s. Ideas about masculinity, sex and love die hard in places where a living is earned the rough way.
It’s also about the impossible weight of such a secret, how it taints other good things. Obviously, this is Jack and Ennis’ story, but my heart also broke for Alma, who simply couldn’t understand and yet kept her husband’s secret; and for Lureen, who probably understood too late.
In some ways, it reminded me a lot of “Carol” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which tackles a similar subject matter, albeit with less tragic consequences.
Be careful reading this: it might rip your heart out.
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About the movie: it’s sublime. It would have been sublime even if it hadn’t been Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, but they were so freaking perfect. I’ve watched it at least twelve times and cried at every single viewing.
This story, as Julie so cleverly phrased it, is about being in love with someone you can’t have, and few feelings are as violent as that. And I’m willing to bet that few places made you feel the burn of that feeling more than Wyoming in the 1960s. Ideas about masculinity, sex and love die hard in places where a living is earned the rough way.
It’s also about the impossible weight of such a secret, how it taints other good things. Obviously, this is Jack and Ennis’ story, but my heart also broke for Alma, who simply couldn’t understand and yet kept her husband’s secret; and for Lureen, who probably understood too late.
In some ways, it reminded me a lot of “Carol” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which tackles a similar subject matter, albeit with less tragic consequences.
Be careful reading this: it might rip your heart out.
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About the movie: it’s sublime. It would have been sublime even if it hadn’t been Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, but they were so freaking perfect. I’ve watched it at least twelve times and cried at every single viewing.
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I don't even know where to start on this one. I read it almost 24 hours ago and it has played on a loop in my brain since then.
Another reviewer used the word 'bereft' when describing how this book made them feel. I think that's a pretty accurate emotional description.
Proulx's writing is sublime. I'm certain I don't have enough words in my vocabulary to describe how intensely, eerily beautiful her prose is. From the first paragraph I couldn't look away. I kept re-reading sections because her writing had meaning on so many levels. At times wordy and verbose, other times understated and simply implied.
I physically reacted to this book. I felt tense and depressed. It was utterly humorless. I felt like my chest was in a vice at times (when they saw each other after 4 years apart; each time Jack begged Ennis to leave his life and stay with him; when Ennis visits Jack's parents to name a few. The shirts in the cupboard scene pretty much undid me. I couldn't even keep reading, I just put the kindle down and cried. Big, sloppy, silent tears.
How can you feel so despairingly for fictional characters? How is it possible to feel like this has just happened to you? I felt furious with Jack, livid with the society they inhabited, disgusted with the homophobia.
But mostly I just felt/feel bereft. Feel like screaming out at the waste of what could have been in a different time/different place.
This book is a real class act. It stands so far ahead of most if what I've read not only in this genre, but what I've read per se.
It took me less than an hour to read this book and yet it has had such a deep, guttural effect.
Spectacular.
Another reviewer used the word 'bereft' when describing how this book made them feel. I think that's a pretty accurate emotional description.
Proulx's writing is sublime. I'm certain I don't have enough words in my vocabulary to describe how intensely, eerily beautiful her prose is. From the first paragraph I couldn't look away. I kept re-reading sections because her writing had meaning on so many levels. At times wordy and verbose, other times understated and simply implied.
I physically reacted to this book. I felt tense and depressed. It was utterly humorless. I felt like my chest was in a vice at times (when they saw each other after 4 years apart; each time Jack begged Ennis to leave his life and stay with him; when Ennis visits Jack's parents to name a few. The shirts in the cupboard scene pretty much undid me. I couldn't even keep reading, I just put the kindle down and cried. Big, sloppy, silent tears.
How can you feel so despairingly for fictional characters? How is it possible to feel like this has just happened to you? I felt furious with Jack, livid with the society they inhabited, disgusted with the homophobia.
But mostly I just felt/feel bereft. Feel like screaming out at the waste of what could have been in a different time/different place.
This book is a real class act. It stands so far ahead of most if what I've read not only in this genre, but what I've read per se.
It took me less than an hour to read this book and yet it has had such a deep, guttural effect.
Spectacular.
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"I goddamn hate it that you're goin a drive away in the mornin and I'm goin back to work. But if you can't fix it you gotta stand it...."
The story of Jack & Ennis who met and loved on Brokeback Mountain is unutterably raw. Though a quick read coming in at around 55 pages, it certainly packs a punch.
It's a sparse tale. Minimalist. Kind of like their time together. Over in a rush, never enough. Sometimes only seeing each other every few years, each having their own family. But always on each other's minds.
"One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by a sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough."
"I wish I knew how to quit you."
My heart ached for Jack & Ennis. Who has the right to question anyone's love?
The end of this book... I felt sadness for a life half lived. The cruelty of having to live a lie. But the reality being that at that time, men in the area even suspected of being gay met their untimely end with the help of a tyre iron.
This is definitely a story that will stay in my find for some time. It's just one of those that resonate long after the book has been closed.
JV's review caught my eye. Reading it made me wonder why I'd never read the book before (though I'd seen the movie long ago). I figured it would be a good change of pace to the usual bookclub pick. Please have a look at JV's words, they're beautiful, as they come from the heart
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Brokeback mountain, more like bareback mountain.
It's a story of two guys who had the hots for one another, but went on to have wives and kids of their own.
They meet twice a year on a "fishing trip", and at last one of em dies and the other gets his ashes to where they "done it" the first time.
It's a story of two guys who had the hots for one another, but went on to have wives and kids of their own.
They meet twice a year on a "fishing trip", and at last one of em dies and the other gets his ashes to where they "done it" the first time.
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