I've been meaning to read this short-story ever since I fell in love with the film years ago. Well, I finally read it 13 years later. The movie incorporated every piece of this story, even the dialogue and noteworthy quotes. Having experienced the film first, I didn't gain anything further from the reading experience. The film actually fleshed out the characters more which was needed in my opinion. However, this beautiful film wouldn't exist if not for this tiny story and for that I am forever grateful to Annie Proulx. ♥



My favorite quote:
“If you can't fix it you have to stand it.”

Brokeback Mountain is such a short read that you can read it in one sitting. Despite its length though and how quickly you can get through it, there were many flaws about this short story that hindered me from really enjoying it.

I couldn't stand the writing style. Far too many run-on sentences that I found so distracting and annoying. Scenes seem to begin and end so quickly that it is as if it didn't happen at all. Though the characters are somewhat interesting, there is no depth...the dialogue is way too forced and corny...it's hard for me to care about characters that are hardly given any life and personality. The love affair between Jack and Ennis i think was better portrayed in the movie...in the short story, I didn't find it believable, touching, or endearing at all.

The story overall has a hasty feel and tone to it. I could maybe blame it on the length, because it is under 60 pages, but honestly, I don't think the author is that great of a writer. The plot is original but the way it's executed is lackluster and boring to say the least.

This is one of those cases where the movie is far better than the book. At least it was a very quick read...so it's not as if you'd be wasting that much time reading it. Still, nonetheless, I'd rather stick with the movie instead.

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.

I read this in the collection Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and Other stories, which I reviewed HERE.

I knew this exquisite story well from the film, and the two are very similar.

It is a story of unexpected and irresistible passion, longing and loss - understated and never graphic.

Jack and Ennis meet, lust and love one summer, and meet up over the years, despite starting more conventional families. "The brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough." But the '60s (and even '70s) weren't as swingin' as we're led to believe, certainly in their communities, so "nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved". In the interim, "What J remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was... the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger."

It happens to concern homosexual love between cowboys, starting in the 1960s, but it could just as easily be any taboo relationship.

The harsh beauty of the mountains, coupled with love and longing, reminded me a little of Cold Mountain, which I reviewed HERE.

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.

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.

This felt way too rushed as a short story and I didn't really get time to love the characters. The idea is definitely good, but I just wish it was more fleshed out.

Oh, my goodness... What a beautiful and heart-wrenching story! I haven't seen the movie. This book is beautifully written and draws you into these lives so quickly.. I felt as if I had known the characters forever! A true work of art!

Raw, intense and heartbreaking.

4,5 ⭐

Annie Proulx nos describe en pocas páginas una historia de amor homosexual en la Norteamérica profunda de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Lo hace de forma magistral. No necesita más que dos pinceladas para definir los personajes. Dos vaqueros y veinte años de una relación nunca vivida abiertamente por temor a los condicionantes del lugar y de la época.

Sentimientos y emociones a flor de piel, deseo, pasión, miedo y frustración. El miedo de Ennis, la frustración de Jack y, ante todo, la pena por dos vidas malgastadas. Todo ello narrado con una prosa bonita y directa sin caer en el sentimentalismo fácil. La historia ya es bastante amarga así sin necesidad de revolver más al lector. La película basada en este relato, también muy buena, me dejó hecha polvo cuando la vi.

En conclusión. Una historia amarga condensada en pocas páginas. Una prosa magnífica y una autora a la que seguiré leyendo. Recomendable.

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!!

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.