Last month I wrote a post about how our desire for sex and sexuality is often given to us through pseudo-academic and artful means. I brought up all the hubbub surrounding the movie version of Brokeback Mountain, how people pretend to be moved by the story but in my opinion are just psyched to see Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal being sexy together on the screen. A reader named Carlos felt that I should be giving less attention to the movie and more to the story that spawned it. He had this to say:
“Often when a work of literature is used as the catalyst for a film, the original work gets lost in the shuffle. Ang Lee gets credit for his beautiful pictures, but those ideas came from someone else. Those images first formed in a writer’s head, and then on a page. I worry that we too often lose sight of that origin. That concern does not put forth that there is a higher value placed on either film or literature. It just asks that we remember those who work hard at their art, who imagine other worlds carefully and deeply.
So, here’s to Annie Proulx. I thank her for an amazing story and for characters imagined so clearly they could be rendered on screen.”
At the time I had neither read the story nor seen the movie. I still have not seen the movie (though I’ll admit I’m excited for the opportunity) but I just finished the story this afternoon. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely impressed.
And I’m not sure why.
I think it just happened too quickly. First there was conversation and camaraderie on the mountain. Then Ennis helpfully switched jobs with Jack. Then there was cold, some drink, and before you know it Ennis is running “full-throttle” into Jack and their lives are forever changed.
What concerned me was that I didn’t get the build up that made their union believable. I did not have a good enough impression of either man, or their interactions with eachother that would have helped me to see why that moment took them as strongly as it did.
That’s not to say that we don’t get to know them later, or that it isn’t terribly moving and sad as their lives continue. The image of the two shirts hung inside on another in the closet was perfect. And many of the other characters appear whole within two sentences. All I’m saying is that I have a hard time believing that these two men just stumbled into coitus as it was presented. And it made me a little distant from everything else.
Any insights, Carlos?
Me and Mr. Jones 
Tony -Do you think then that the “short story” is even capable of expressing this sort of “epic-scale” love and longing that a 2 hour movie can do? or a 500 page novel?Or is the short story more confined to those quirky pieces that leaves a lot of open-ended questions?I agree with you that the story isn’t too convincing, and precisely because it moves too fast. I read it a few months ago. I must say I was engaged throughout the twenty minutes that I spent with the text, but at the end I was wishing there were more to be said, so that it would have been more of a “journey” than a short story.And, in response to your quote of Carlos, I’m not so sure if those images in Proulx’s head should be equated or compared with those of Ang Lee’s. Is one version of the story more authentic than the other? True, by the somewhat(!) commercial nature of Hollywood, the art behind films often get obscured by star-power and whatnot. Yes, it’s important to realize that Proulx made the story first, but it’s also important to realize that the movie is something completely different than the short story, and that the screen writers and the directors all had a heavy end in making this new work of art that’s somewhat based on Proulx’s original idea.(And besides, Proulx got a Pulitzer… that’s recognition enough no? :D)