brokeback mountain

hullu hullu. it's time for a literature review post.

i haven't been reading much since before promos last year when i finished Elizabeth Kata's Kagami, a japanese-ish, freaking long (1000+pgs) novel about the fall of the tokugawas and the meji restoration. good book, and better for RAP. then everything else i read was the economist, newsweek and the woman warrior. and i realised that reading makes me feel purposeful. i dunno why, like makes me feel calmer and like i have something to do other than school and tv. especially THE LORD OF THE RINGS. hmm oh what a sad life.

so. i was looking for a book to read, asked everyone around, and came up with three nominees: memoirs of a geisha, brokeback mountain and the maths tys. memoirs was too japanese, duh, cos i just read kagami. and also, it's culturally inaccurate. i think. or the straits times thinks. and maths tys is just too dry. i mean, appreciate all the diagrams and drawings and elegant, matter-of-fact tone, but i just dun understand it. so finally, due to movie crazes we end up with... brokeback mountain by annie proulx. and i tell you, it is an excellent book. dun diss it just because its about gay cowboys, it really is beautiful. oh i am a SNAG. SNAG SNAG SCHNAPPI, SCHNAPPI SCHNAPPI SCHNA- okay enough.

now. brokeback mountain one in a collection of 11 short stories published under the title "close range: brokeback mountain and other short stories" by pulitzer prize winner annie proulx, who also wrote shipping news, another brilliant one. BBM is about ennis del mar and jack twist, who are the aforementioned heterosexual cowboys who have non-heterosexual interests in each other, and the shit they have to go through to feed their love and lust throughout 20 years before someone dies and the whole tale ends in regret and heartwrench.

the thing about BBM is that it is so very short (50+pgs), but so infinitely powerful. its power lies not in the characters or plot but rather in the helpless futility and hardship described throughout the novella. in so few pages, perhaps it is nearly impossible for proulx to be able to develop her characters fully. jack twist, ennis and their wives and children are all presented in simple, well-defined, nonetheless very vivid forms, but somehow there is always a vagueness when it comes to really understanding them. unlike in her other stories, BBM's characters are not deep and developed; in other words, we do not have enough details about them to know what they'd do outside of events outside the book, their motivations, etc. but the cool thing is, i feel that maybe proulx meant for them to be incomplete. the characters themselves do not really matter. BBM is fundamentally the story of two characters in love but cannot be together, and there is regret. we've seen this in romeo and juliet, and about 6 thousand korean dramas. i guess you could easily stick a black guy and a white girl in place of ennis and jack twist and it'll probably work. or a chicken and a cow, or creatures that simply cannot be together. so why did annie choose gays? i guess it's because the two characters can hence be very similar, and the most kek sim part is that they know each other's feelings and predicament because they're both essentially under the same situation, but due to their different personalities they deal with it differently, which in turn leads to them misunderstanding, hurting and lying to themselves and each other and everyone else.

the thing about BBM is that it deals with love and beauty marred with futility. i get the feeling that the feeling of being unable to do something which you need or want to do is the most kek feeling in the universe. all kek feelings come from this. people feel sad at funerals because they cherish the deceased, and the horrible feeling of the person being gone forever and you can't do anything about bringing him back is really kek. maxine hong kingston feels kek because of the futility of her situation, torn between china and america, unable to fully embrace both. Ennis and Jack's story is all the more kek cos it is about a beautiful relationship, a special, unique one, which is already hopeless from the beginning, but yet they can't do anything to forget each other, or be with each other. the most they can do is "a few high-altitude fucks a year", but it's no real thing. even when jack presents a solution it's no use since ultimately they are too poor, society too harsh on cowboys who ride more than cows, horses and cowgirls, and the guilt since they have wives and families. all their relationship really is is a summer spent on Brokeback Mountain; yet it haunts them for the rest of their lives. they cannot continue their relationship on BBM, but it's the perfect life for them. kek.

and the final way in which someone dies is really tragic, further amplified by this KEK futility.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW DO NOT READ IF YOU DUN WANNA KNOW






SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS





when ennis's partner dies, he dies due to their relationship. their lusty acts are spied on by an insidious foreman who employed them. jack keeps talking about bringing ennis to his father's ranch to help rebuild it and make it prosper, but it was taboo and suspicious for two men to be living on a ranch, alone, together. so the wyoming anti-gay club tire-ironed him. the description is vague, but it involves being tied to an automobile at the penis and beign dragged along the road, face down, until the person dies or his penis breaks, ending up as a bloody stump. kinda like saying "if you dun wanna use your dick properly, then we'll pluck it out for ya". another thing is that you get run over by a car with tyres without rubber, i.e. only the metal rim. i dunno, but the point is that jack dies beacuse of ennis. and just before we know that jack dies, we finally see their true relationship: it's not all about lust, but fellowship and love, when we are told that jack's most treasured moment is one where ennis embraces him from behind and holds him, humming and doing nothing horny. and the worse part is that jack's wife doesnt care, his father hates him and ennis (somehow i get the feeling that jack's father tire ironed him) and his last wish was to have his ashes scattered on BBM, but it couldn't be done. so he died futiley and ennis couldn't do anything about it. and i guess the worse part is that ennis still lives his poor, futureless, hopeless existence, with no wife (divorced) and faraway kids, and all he can do for the rest of his life is to live out the times they had on Brokeback Mountain in his dreams, looking at a postcard and the shirts which they wore 20 years ago (which jack kept and he found).

sigh. the best part about BBM is the tone and diction. everything is in third person, which enables annie to give a calm, controlled account, but her words are raw, unpolished, matter of fact and to the point, which makes the emotions calm, yet raging, rational yet inexplicable, and totally raw, vivid and un-helpable. PROULX IS A GENIUS.

so. go read BBM, it really is a good book. if you feel uncomfortable reading all the man-love parts (which, though presented in a toned-down way, is still raw and disturbing. i mean, she used "erect cock" in the first man-love part wth. but the sexual connotations are everywhere) just ignore it or wince and feel disturbed, but i tell you the whole thing in its entirety is more than worth it. if you want to spend your time reading something sad and depressing lah. and even if you dun like BBM, there's still 10 other good stories in the collection... ANNE PROULX IS A GENIUS

okay. i'll go watch naruto or the cheesy chinese show on channel 62 now to feel less kek. AH KEKEEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEK. KEK. KEK. WHY MUST YOU GO AND PUT HIS SHIRT INSIDE YOUR SHIRT, SUCH AN OBVIOUS METAPHOR BUT STILL SO KEK. ah.




END OF SPOILERS




okay.... i guess that's all for today's litereature review. buh-bye kids

reeeeeeeeeeeech

p.s. make sure there are no strange, skinny men in tight long-sleeved tees who carry tote bags and wear rings and lip gloss queing up behind you, if you are male and want to buy the book. creeps. but i guess it helps to bring a girl along if you wana impress her, show her how snag you are. right. GIRLS, I BOUGHT AND READ THE BOOK, AND I COULD APPRECIATE IT, SO MY NUMBER IS- ask me and i will tell you in school.

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech