3 stars (:
Its really impressive how some authors could write a whole story in just a few pages..
Unfortunately, I have seen some spoilers before reading the book and knew the ending, but it still affected me :( ..
Eventhough I had some serious problems with this book, I liked it :D..
I havent seen the movie, but I have a feeling that if I do, I will like it more than the book :)..
Sorry..

My kind of romance.
30% love, 80% depression and 0% maths.

n  

One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.

n

***NO SPOILERS***

“Gay cowboy love story” may be how it’s often summed up, but that’s flippant. Brokeback Mountain is emotional, resonant, and ultimately gut-wrenching—and quietly so. This is a humble story, tightly focused almost exclusively on young Wyoming cowboys Ennis and Jack as they spend a summer working together on Brokeback Mountain. Before long they’re forced to reconcile their love for each other with their everyday, conventional, socially acceptable lives.

What’s most powerful about Brokeback Mountain is the frightening reality facing these two, that they would be in danger if together, not just frowned upon and harassed:

Jack, I don’t want a be like them guys you see around sometimes. And I don’t want a be dead. There was these two old guys ranched together down home, Earl and Rich—Dad would pass a remark when he seen them. They was a joke even though they was pretty tough old birds. I was what, nine years old and they found Earl dead in a irrigation ditch. They’d took a tire iron to him, spurred him up, drug him around by his dick until it pulled off, just bloody pulp. What the tire iron done looked like pieces a burned tomatoes all over him, nose tore down from skiddin on gravel.

Proulx bravely addressed a taboo topic head-on but refrained from pushing an agenda or manipulating emotions. Brokeback Mountain is a story she constructed around a reality; there’s a sincerity to what happens in these pages. A surprise toward the end takes the story in a direction the reader won’t predict, and it’s perfect, true to the overall serious, introspective tone but also reinforcing Proulx’s message well.

The words flow so easily, whether it's the dialogue or the description in between. Such a beautiful, fully-formed little story that conveys so much emotion in its barely-fifty-plus pages. Read it in one sitting after stumbling across it at the shop this afternoon and loved it.

Sometimes words come together in ways that twist knives you didn't know you still had in your gut.
Proulx achieves this with a stark economy (tautology almost, but I wanted both words) that leaves you both breathless and on the verge of hyperventilation.
It's been long since I had such a visceral reaction to the written word.
I wanted it to last longer. And at the same time, I can't see how it could have.
Exquisite!

I never really had any intention of reading this book. I've never seen the movie either. (Though I might now. I'm curious how they handled it.) Stories about ranchers & cowboys don't exactly draw me in. To be honest, Annie Proulx's stories don't have much appeal to me in general. I can't really put my finger on it, but they just don't scream "Read me!" when I see one.

Anyway, I had to go to the library to stop them from billing me for a book I'd already returned, and while I was there, I happened to see this book, and thought, "What the hell? It's short." So I grabbed it.

And it was worth it. This is a very short story, but it works at this length. It fits this length. It's sparse and visceral. I was surprised that on page 14, in the space of a single sentence, the relationship between Ennis and Jack goes from co-workers to lovers. It was less like a bomb dropping than like a rock smashing through a window. There's no warning, no whistling descent to warn of the impending explosion - it's just not there one second, and then it is, and there's nothing to do but deal with it.

On an emotional level, I feel for these guys. They were both dishonest with themselves for a long time, and neither of them could have the relationship they needed. Jack needed that companionship and understanding and acceptance - and he couldn't get it unconditionally from Ennis. It actually breaks my heart a little bit, because Ennis was more afraid of the "what if" than he was OK with the "what is", and they both suffered for it. Ennis lost his chance at happiness that he didn't even know he needed until it was too late. The scene at Jack's parents' house was rough, because I can imagine Ennis understanding the depth of Jack's feelings for the first time, maybe, and being unable to change how things turned out would have to be hard. Thinking about that kind of regret kind of kills me a little inside...

I'm surprised how much I liked this book. I really didn't expect to like it nearly as much as I did, but a good tear-jerker will do it for me every time. I love when a book can transcend boundaries and make me really identify with a character (or characters) and make me hurt for them. I'll definitely have to check out more of Proulx's books. Maybe there'll be more gems that I'd have otherwise missed.

I rarely go to the movies. Truly, the last movie I saw in a theater was Lincoln, in 2012.

But, one day back in 2005, a good friend called and wondered if I'd like to spend that snowy Sunday in a theater with her, watching something called Brokeback Mountain.

Brokeback Mountain? Never heard of it. Sure, I'd go.

Almost no one was in the theater that morning. My friend got popcorn, and I got comfortable. When Heath Ledger appeared on the giant screen, I got sassy, and my friend got uncomfortable.

For those of you who know me, you know I can get very outspoken about my leading men, and Heath has always made my heart beat faster. Before anyone could say “Ledger,” I was making Mmmm, Mmmm yummy sounds and saying things like “Mama like, oh, Mama like.”

My friend slid deeper into her seat and was like, “Rein it in, sister.”

But then Jake Gyllenhaal appeared on the screen and I had never seen him before and I was like, “What's up, Mr. Dimples? Mr. Sparkles? Why don't you come on over here with those shiny eyes?”

I swear I was worse than a 1940s sailor freshly docked at bay.

And just as my eyes were happily feasting on all of that eye candy in Levi's, the weirdest thing happened. . . the Heath character violently grabs the Jake character and they start to have a man-on-man fuck fest. Ain't no other way to describe it, folks.

I remember. . . my hands went numb and I was like. . . WTF? Why are those two hot, hetero guys up there doing that, instead of down here in this row, asking me if I'd like a drink? What is this? I thought we were having a good time, up on that mountain together. (Well, they were, I wasn't).

I was surly after that. Whenever someone asked me if I'd seen the movie, I'd respond with, “Yeah, I've seen the damn movie.”

While other people were getting themselves worked up and quoting scripture. . . I was like, “Why couldn't they have picked less attractive actors?” I didn't have a problem with them being gay, or whatever they were, I had a problem with not being able to imagine them with me. Let's face it, people, you go to a romantic movie, and part of the appeal is imagining yourself in that situation. I wish I had been AWARE of what was going to happen in the movie. I felt. . . taken unawares.

I also wish I had been one of the readers who had known the rather obscure short story when it came out in 1997. I wasn't an Annie Proulx reader yet, but I would become one, in 2013, and fall deeply in love with The Shipping News, too.

If I had read the story, before the movie, it would have been a completely different experience.

Well, anyway, now I have.

I spent last night discovering it, and I can't believe it, but it's one of the best stories I've ever encountered. The writing is stunning, just stunning, and Ennis and Jack's love story pulls you in immediately.

Please, do not mistake me. . . it is NOT a subtle story. The nearly violent interactions between the men in the movie have their basis here, in the original story. . . neither man is a shrinking violet when it comes to his love for the other.

But, oh, it is a love story.

It startled me, stunned me, aroused me, and saddened me. It is truly one of the best works of short fiction I've ever encountered.

And this line: if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it.

To me, this story isn't about being gay; it's about being in love with someone you can't have.

n  «Ojalá supiera cómo renunciar a tí.» n

Me sorprendió mucho la forma tan linda de escribir de Annie Proulx. Es poético y muy específico al mismo tiempo. Todo en esta historia corta ocurre rápido, como el paso de los años. Eso sin embargo no nos va a impedir sufrir. Están avisados.

Esta es la historia de Jack Twist y Ennis del Mar, dos cowboys pastores de ovejas (¿o sheepboys?) que se conocen por accidente gracias a un trabajo en Brokeback Mountain. Entre ellos surge una atracción que los toma por sorpresa, y supongo que también al lector si no sabe de qué trata el libro (o la película). Ambos son hombres recios, de pocas palabras y pocos sentimientos, y viven en un pueblo donde una relación homosexual podría costarles la vida.
A pesar de que entre ellos surge un vínculo absoluto, no van a exteriorizar jamás lo que sienten. Aunque al terminar el trabajo en Brokeback Mountain cada uno vuelve a su vida, con el paso de los años seguirán encontrando la forma de verse de forma esporádica (y clandestina) pero intensa.

Durante una gran parte de la historia no terminé de congeniar ni con Jack ni con Ennis, quizás en gran parte por lo huraños que son tanto entre ellos como con la vida en general, o por esa forma de expresarse tan peculiar que demuestra la ausencia de educación de ambos. El contraste entre la narración y los diálogos es marcadísimo (y por momentos dificil de entender... al menos en inglés).

Tiempo después ese abrazo adormilado se consolidó en su memoria como el único momento de ingenua, encantadora felicidad en sus duras vidas separadas.

Cerca del final, sin embargo, ocurre algo que me hizo cambiar de opinión de forma abrupta. Me quedé maravillada por el modo en que Annie Proulx manipuló mis sentimientos, haciéndome encariñar en tres segundos con dos personajes que me resultaban relativamente indiferentes.
Es una historia muy bella realmente, me alegro de haberla leído.


Reseña de Libros junto al mar

A cowboy story with superfluous descriptions of gunslingers and traditional masculine bravado has always been and still is very stifling, repellent and misleading to me. Lingering on this thought I started the book and to my surprise I loved it! Two men falling deeply in love with each other doomed in this homophobic world typifies the suggestion that love can exist in any form, against all odds. Now, for me what remained stifling in this book was the society’s powerful indictment of male love, in fear of which Jack & Ennis sailed in two boats all their lives until one drowned.

Once in love with the book I immediately decided to watch the movie which I found equally commendable and now I was in love with the two male actors. The cinematography, the picturesque view, the acting and the kiss between the two protagonists! Male protagonist!! Marvelous! How many people have the nerves to give such cinematic kissing scenes? I read somewhere the script ran seven years from door to door in search of actors who would agree to do such scenes. Again exemplifies the social orthodoxy. The film magnified my experience of reading this book by giving an articulate form to my imaginations.

n  Brokeback Mountainn is a luminous yet melancholy story of love and the loneliness love brings as a result of conservatism/homophobia.It is a romantic epic and an unforgettable affair!!

|| 3.5 stars ||

This is such a tragic story, but so beautifully written.
It’s a story that many queer people used to live through in the past, which makes it all the more heartbreaking to read…
There’s not much focus here on the build-up of their love connection, but instead it tells the story of how sad and lonely and angry and impossible their lives were because of that love.

If I had to describe this story in three words, they would be: beautiful, heartbreaking, and unique.

Let’s put this into context: I received not so good news yesterday at night – I really felt in a bad way, a little bit optimistic though. Before too long, I decided to pick up this book, since I have always believed that a book can help us to face any difficult situation when there’s no one around us at that precise moment. So, I read this one at 2 AM today, while I was listening to Can you feel the love tonight? by Elton John again and again and again, so that I could enjoy this love story even more.

I’d also like to say I’ve never watched the film, nor the trailer, which is based on this book; so, I always supposed this would be a love story, I mean, a completely love story; however, as I said at the beginning of my review, it turned out to be rather heartbreaking. This fact was not such a big problem, since people sometimes need to know the difficulties of others to learn how to overcome their own stuff, for instance, as Goethe said at the beginning of The Sorrows of Young Werther: And thou, good soul, who sufferest the same distress as he endured once, draw comfort from his sorrows; and let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion. Thus, I decided to take his advice, and make things follow their own course.
By the way, now that I’ve read this story, I think it’s going to be a great idea to watch the movie as soon as possible; we’ll see.

In a nutshell, and in order to be truly honest, this book was even much more astonishing and compelling than I could have imagine: the story itself, its very well developed protagonists (which is impressive if you consider this as a really short story), and the affecting ending; overall, it made me feel such things that I’d never felt reading a book before – perhaps you get what I mean after I told you how I felt last night when I was reading it.

And can you feel the love tonight?
It is where we are…

May 2020

I reread this short story for my English literature course and my feelings and opinions are pretty much the same as last year. I'm very looking forward to discuss this in class.

March 2019

Let me just say that I've never seen the movie and that's why I decided to fix this by reading the book first and then watching the adaptation.
This story is basically sadness provoked by the fact that two people, Jack and Ennis, who obviously care for each other, cannot be together. All they have are some moments of solace once or twice a year.
It was a good story but I'm giving it three stars because it was really short and I did not have the time to get to know the characters well.
Now I'm really eager to watch the movie adaptation.