I read this recently for an LGBT book club. What can I say, I didn't like it. (I have seen the movie and didn't like that either.)

This is the story of two young men in the west in the sixties who have a love affair while tending sheep one summer. This affair continues for many years, until one of the characters is brutally killed.

According to one of the blurbs on the back of the book Brokeback Mountain "Abolishes the Old West cliches". Perhaps, but it does nothing to abolish the tired old gay cliches. When Ann Bannon wrote the Beebo Brinker chronicles in the late fifties there was one simple rule for gay literature, no matter what good things happen during the book it's got to end badly. Beebo Brinker, Jiovanni's Room, The Well of loneliness...Do we really need another story about how it sucks to be gay and it will, of course, end badly?

I also couldn't ultimately buy into the whole relationship. It seems to happen so fast and with so little discussion. I would never in a million years let some guy screw me when he won't talk about what's going on, or for that matter, look me in the face. As a result I can't put myself into either character's shoes or accept them as anything other than fictional.

The third and final thing I didn't like has to do with the fact that Annie Proulx is a straight woman. It's not that straight writers can't write gay characters, or for that matter that gay writers can't write straight characters. It's just that she has received so many accolades for this story pisses me off.

The movie, directed by a straight man and people with mostly straight cast members, pisses me off even more. This is a story told by straight people about how they perceive the LGBT community. Then they want to pat themselves on the back about what a great thing they've done for us. All the while they are ignoring some many great LGBT authors who are writing and painting a much more diverse, vibrant and accurate picture of what our lives are really like.

That one always gets me, I just can't read it without crying at the end. Sooo good. And what a gorgeous adaptation - so beautifully done.

A lot of people think this book is about how society is to blame for destroying the homosexual love of two men. I disagree on who is to blame. Society is always telling us what to do, how to think, and how to feel.

WARNING: my review contains spoilers.
What struck me were the lies that Ennis and Jack forced themselves to believe, in suppressing the feelings they had for each other their whole lives. They used other people as an excuse. This was not a gay version of external conflict as in Romeo & Juliet but more like the inner private turmoil of stories like The Thorn Birds; Jack with his ambition and Ennis in his own (possibly made-up) fears of what harm people would do to them both.

There were no mighty armies that held them back. There were no powerful feuding families to appease. They did have people who depended on them and other commitments, but as you read further towards the ending, they realize they were ultimately free to make their own choices and therein lay their downfall. The passing of time brought chances to leave their responsibilities and live the life they had always wanted. As it was in the beginning, escape was possible in the symbolic refuge of the mountain -- a long-term escape too if only they were honest with themselves and with others. They instead sucked in their pain, chose to be as responsible as they could to their families, chose to compromise themselves for ‘civilization’ and thought they were doing the right thing, but as they say, if you don’t take care of yourself first, how can you take care of others?

The ending is perfect. It captures the inevitable failure of living a false life. Even at death, the problem didn’t go away. For the relationship didn’t end at Jack’s death. It was self-sabotaged and self-destructed long before that (with his trips to Mexico and Ennis with his escalating temper and further withdrawal from his family). His death just made Ennis more aware of it than ever. The ending’s return of Ennis daughter showed a chance at redemption and love that may have always been present, despite his stubbornness to hide in his own beliefs. If only he had told them the truth from the start, they may have understood. The real tragedy is he will never know.

Sure, I'd seen the movie, and until recently owned a copy of the book with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal on the cover, which was published to coincide with the release of the movie. I gave the book away without ever having read it—I'd scanned the pages for the sexy bits and was unimpresssed—and secretly considered myself immune to the power of Annie Proulx's words. I was wrong. She packs a fuckin' punch really is the most appropriate way to express it—and some of her turns of phrase are surprisingly hilarious simply because she minces no words. The death with which the story concludes isn't even the devastating part. I mean it is, but it's the what comes after—the regret and the might-have-beens, the longing for what was and can never be again—that really tightens the throat. Consider me even gayer than I was before, and all thanks to a straight woman.

n  "Ennis pulled Jack's hand to his mouth, took a hit from the cigarette, exhaled. "Sure as hell seem in one piece to me. You know, I was sittin up here all that time tryin to figure out if I was—? I know I ain't. I mean, here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doin it with women, yeah, but Jesus H., ain't nothin like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinkin about you. You do it with other guys, Jack?"

"Shit no," said Jack, who had been riding more than bulls, not rolling his own. "You know that. Old Brokeback got us good and it sure ain't over. We got to work out what the fuck we're goin a do now?""n

If you can't fix it you've got to stand it absolutely beautiful

I adore the movie, but I have never considered to read a book. I think I just was afraid to read it.



My first surprise was the length of the novel. 55 pages?! (And audio book of 1 hr and 4 mins?!)
My second surprise was...my naivety. I thought, because I KNEW the story, I COULD read it, without being emotionally a mess. I couldn't. I didn't. I cried a river. And I still have no idea if my emotional response could be explained by a beautiful and unique prose of Annie Proulx or an outstanding narration of Campbell Scott or the vivid images of one of my favorite movies that I won't be able to forget...or maybe ALL of these together...

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.

TW: Cheating, homophobia, domestic abuse, child abandon, murder

n  *****SPOILERS*****n
About the book: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 deeper 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.
Release Date: October 13th,1997
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 55
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
t• It's a short book
t• I remember liking the movie like 15 years ago

What I Didn't Like:
t• Dudes are terrible humans
t• The abuse (physical and mental)

Overall Thoughts: This book is short. So short that you really have no idea who these people even are. They meet and decide to share a roll up mat and now they are having sex. These two guys are shit. I find it funny that when it's a same sex couple that's cheating then it's inspirational and sweet, but if it were a straight couple - they are horrible and we shouldn't cheer them on.

There is a moment where Jack comes to visit Ennis and they are barely out of the house before they are making out. Alma catches them and Ennis pretty much tells her to shut up and he'll be home later. He can't even be bothered to buy her cigarettes despite how she would feel catching her husband cheating on her. Yes, cheating. It's still cheating even if they are the same sex.

Years go by (20 years) and Alma gets smart and has moved on - which gives the dudes plenty of time to have sex.

Alma makes a comment about how she knew they weren't really fishing and Ennis being the asshole he is grabs her while she is pregnant and hurts her. He then decides to not see his kids again because it's her fault?

Read this short story a few times now, but having just seen the movie again, and watched the extras, I wanted to see how much was in the original and how much was interpolated by the screenwriters.

In fact, a lot of it is in this amazing piece of writing, especially from Ennis' point of view. He doesn't know what is going on with Jack in Texas and Mexico and that is the portion which was fleshed out for the moviegoers.

Beautiful poetic language, and a sad story.

[On a writing note, this is a work I often point to when people claim writers should not be allowed to write about characters who are outside their own demographic.]

This is the first audio book I've 'read'. It was much more akin to listening to a radio play than sitting reading a book. There was no effort involved and by the nuancing of the narrator the book was interpreted for me. It was fast-paced, no time to sit and ponder a paragraph, no natural break between chapters just a pause. I can't say I enjoyed it, it felt fake, it felt like cheating, it felt like the dumbed-down version - all the work done for me and no need to particularly concentrate either, in fact I played spider solitaire and tetris while I was 'reading' the book. I can only think I would use this format again for a book I had to read but couldn't get through.

I find that reading a book, I really concentrate on it, nothing else around me exists, I enter the world of the writer, I might stop and think about what I'm reading once in a while, reread a particularly difficult or beautifully-written paragraph and even enjoy the way book is laid-out, the font, the margins, the spacing, the look of paragraphs on the page, and of course the feel of the paper (I like thick, creamy hardback book pages).

Last year I kept a list on a Goodreads thread of a 100-book a year challenge. I could see with audio books, I could easily increase the number of books I've 'read', but it would feel to me the same as including children's books, too easy an option.

This is only my experience. Others think of audio books in quite different ways and thoroughly enjoy them. I had hoped I would, but nope, I just wasn't feelin' it at all. I would quite like to 'read' an audio book along with someone who enjoys them, a chapter at a time and see if I could get more from it than I had alone.

To move on to a review of the book itself - I found the prose, described by almost everyone to be 'spare' as the opposite, overly descriptive, but this could be the media, perhaps written it reads quite differently. I feel any review of the book is a review of the way the narrator chose to interpret it and not the book itself, so I'm going to end by saying, I enjoyed the book, but not a lot and I enjoyed the media not much at all.

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.

Update: Today, I finally sat down and watched the movie based on this short story. Wow, just wow. The movie was beautifully shot, with strong performance from Heath Ledger as Ennis del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist. The breathtaking scenery of Wyoming, especially of Brokeback Mountain, and those chubby, cutie sheep add so much poetry to a truthful but forbidden love story.

I must admit, when I read the story, I really didn’t know how director Ang Lee could transform 55 pages of words into an Oscar-nominated 2-hour-long movie that brought tears to my eyes. But after watching the movie, I kinda knew how he did it. What Annie Proulx described in her short story in one sentence, Ang Lee let it play out in multiple different scenes, permitting viewers to experience the story of “Brokeback Mountain” in a deeper and more complete way. He also added some new side characters (I believe) to the movie version, which in turn gave the story more dynamics and colors. Heath Ledger, with his sad eyes, brilliantly portrayed Ennis del Mar - an introverted, silent cowboy who had to choose between his responsibility as a husband and father, and the dream of being with Jack Twist in their own paradise. Jake Gyllenhaal also brought Jack Twist to life - a seemingly straight man who leaned more toward gay in the sexuality spectrum.

Both actors and the script really highlighted the struggle that gay men at that time must have faced, not only repressed sexuality but also the ties and bonds in their realities that prevented them from living their love and the life that they wanted. So much happened in both Ennis and Jack’s lives; so much passed between them, and they lost 20 years in which they could have been together during that process. All that was left was Brokeback Mountain, the memories of those days they spent together when they were young, which were represented in the two shirts and a photo of the mountain, hiding inside Ennis’ closet. I cried when Ennis cried; my heart broke for him, for Jack Twist, for the love that must forever be kept silent…

How sad and how depressing. I just wish both Ennis and Jack had been born in this time, when there has been so much improvement and openness on how the society views the LGBTQ community. Then this love story wouldn’t have had to be so tragic and heartbreaking like this…

Old review:

I bought this book at a discounted price (only 1 dollar) during my vacation in Cambodia in the summer of 2012. I don’t know why I waited nearly 6 years to read it. What can I say? The best summary about this beautifully written short story belongs to Walter Kirn’s review in New York Magazine:

n  

“A stand-out story… ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is the sad chronology of a love affair between two men who can’t afford to call it that. They know what they’re not - not queer, not gay - but have no idea what they are.”

n

Yes, both Ennis and Jack refused to identify themselves as gay or queer. Ennis even said he loved having sex with women. Both got married, had kids, but somehow the bond that formed during those nights spent together on Brokeback Mountain still haunted them ever since. Ennis missed Jack so much; Jack wanted to have more chances, more time, more love makings with Ennis rather than just one or two copulations in four years. They were trapped in an unsung love and the fear of being repudiated, even tortured, by the society, at that time still didn’t accept that men could fall in love with men, too.

Were Ennis and Jack gay, or were they bisexual? Does this question even matter, when, in my opinion, this story isn’t just about repressed sexuality? It’s simply about love between two human beings, which transcends sexual orientation, labels or what we come to define as LGBTQ.

And don’t let me start talking about the ending, which nearly broke my heart and brought tears to my eyes:

n  

"The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack’s own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.”

n

The only thing I didn’t like about this story is that it was too short, which means there wasn’t enough space for character development. There were many parts in which I felt the change in the characters’ attitude, feelings or thoughts were too abrupt. Even the progression of Ennis and Jack’s love story felt a little bit rushed. With an amazing idea like this, I would love to see it be made into a novel, and I don’t mind reading more pages and more words if it means I could experience the story in a deeper and more thorough way.

How director Ang Lee took this 55-page short story and turned it into an Oscar-nominated 2-hour-long movie is beyond me :D I must watch the movie as soon as possible ahhhh!!!! R.I.P. Heath Ledger :((((