Close Range : Wyoming Stories
by E. Annie Proulx
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Read in October, 2007
Excellent. I usually react a bit badly to the faux-naif voice, which she slips in and out of. But eventually the overwrought language began to seem just exuberant. And the tragedies of the stories were more celebratory than painful: these characters push almost joyfully toward their doom. (Christ, I loved "The Blood Bay," the little yarn that stops long before the characters get whatever it is they have coming.) The leaping language that stops every once in a while to use their voi...more
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Read in January, 2007
When I discovered that the movie was based on an award winning short story which was first published in the New Yorker, I was intrigued. So I bought this edition which is published as a movie tie-in.
The written form sorts of explain of some aspects of the movie which I find confusing such as what happened to Jack Twist in the end. Brokeback Mountain is perhaps the only readable story in this collection. Brokeback Mountain the story is bare and gritty as the movie is lush and tender. I applau...more
The written form sorts of explain of some aspects of the movie which I find confusing such as what happened to Jack Twist in the end. Brokeback Mountain is perhaps the only readable story in this collection. Brokeback Mountain the story is bare and gritty as the movie is lush and tender. I applau...more
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Read in April, 2008
Family connections to Wyoming and my regard for Proulx’s work presented in The Shipping News attracted me to Close Range: Wyoming Stories. I was not disappointed. This is a brilliant, character driven collection of short stories that sealed my admiration for Annie Proulx. She is an amazing writer! She has a way of capturing authenticity of human spirit. Many of the stories profile the lives of gritty, marginal cowboys, ranchers and rodeo dudes. The people in these stories defy all citifi...more
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Read in April, 2006
recommends it for:
a reality check
Before Brokeback Mountain gets taken entirely out of context, take a look at Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories, the collection in which the story is featured. If you've seen the movie but have yet to read the story, I suggest you begin here. If you've already read the story by itself, come back to this collection entire. While Diana Ossana (one of the movie's produces & screenwriters) came across it in the New Yorker and felt inspired to write a screenplay, the story itself does no...more
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recommends it for:
b.r. myers, again, once he works through his issues in psychoanalysis
I love E. Annie Proulx. I honestly think that Myers guy must just have some problems he's got to sort out. I didn't read his book, but the examples he gave in that article of how awful her prose is only reminded me how much I enjoy her stuff, and made me want to go back and read some Proulx again. And I really don't think I'm especially pretentious, or cowed by snooty literary reviewers, whom I barely read. In fact I barely read at all these days, I have such a short attention span, and to me th...more
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Read in January, 2001
I sort of slogged through most of this book, not really enjoying the misery of most of the stories, but drifting along on her lovely writing and the occasional flashes of humor. Then I hit the final story, "Brokeback Mountain." Remember, this is years before the movie came out, so I had no idea that this story would jump out at me. What struck me was that I wouldn't have fully understood the fear and self-loathing of Jack and Ennis if I hadn't just spent several hours immersed in th...more
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recommends it for:
anyone with a brain
I absolutely love E. Annie Proulx. She does that thing with words that makes me go all dissociated from the world around me and live inside the world she creates. I am almost always disturbed by her stories but I can't stop reading them. In fact, her writing is so good that when I saw "Brokeback Mountain" (which I saw *before* I read her short fic on which it was based), I didn't think it was a great story... until I read her actual story. There is ONE line in her piece that makes the ...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Philip by:
Kirk Newberryrecommends it for: anyone who cries at cowboy poetry
There's some real nice short story writin' goin on here. That's for sure. Not quite as satisfying as long form McMurtry or short form Pam Houston, but who ever said she was trying to be either?
And let's get right to the balls of the bull, shall we? The Brokeback Mountain short story. Well, remember how hard you cried at the movie? Get ready.
In much the way that Norman Maclean's RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT made me lose my stuffing for entirely different reasons than the movie (as if we cry ...more
And let's get right to the balls of the bull, shall we? The Brokeback Mountain short story. Well, remember how hard you cried at the movie? Get ready.
In much the way that Norman Maclean's RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT made me lose my stuffing for entirely different reasons than the movie (as if we cry ...more
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Read in October, 2007
Annie Proulx does not write about Yellowstone. She doesn't write about the places in Wyoming you would visit. In these stories, she paints Wyoming as a hard land with a rough history and a bleak future. Stories of failing ranches, strained families and lives coming off the tracks mix in these stories.
However, in "Blood Bay" and "Pair a Spurs," Proulx mixes in the black humor one would expect in her writing and throughout, her intense passion for the land is evident.
So...more
However, in "Blood Bay" and "Pair a Spurs," Proulx mixes in the black humor one would expect in her writing and throughout, her intense passion for the land is evident.
So...more
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Read in July, 2006
recommends it for:
everyone
This is the collection that contains Brokeback Mountain, and I'm embarassed how long it took me to read it. I had read Brokeback Mountain before and liked it, but something about Proulx's style made it hard for me to start reading her other stories. I just couldn't get myself to start.
Now, after having read them, I think it was my mood at the time. Proulx tells stories about lives, hard lives, living in a country that is strange and yet familiar to me. She is an incredibly writer, a true mas...more
Now, after having read them, I think it was my mood at the time. Proulx tells stories about lives, hard lives, living in a country that is strange and yet familiar to me. She is an incredibly writer, a true mas...more
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Read in January, 2004
recommended to Maria by:
Elaine
Elaine gave me a copy of this not knowing that "Shipping News" is one of my favorite fiction. This is a collection of very beautifully written short stories set in the spacious landscape of Wyoming. It varies from funny, spooky, weird, tragic and sometimes romantic. My favorite is the story about a pair of cowboy boots and a horse called "Blood Bay." It shows Proulx's sick sense of humor that I love so much. "Brokeback Mountain" is also in this collection. Thoug...more
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Read in March, 2008
I loved The Shipping News, the first Proulx I read. Unfortunately, her other books suffer a bit by comparison. I should stress the "by comparison" bit, as I think she's a talented writer; it's just that The Shipping News is absolutely masterful. (And it's not a bad movie either.)
Some of the stories in Close Range felt a bit too "workshopped" for my tastes, and the overarching impact of the various stories is so bleak that I'm left wondering why anyon...more
Some of the stories in Close Range felt a bit too "workshopped" for my tastes, and the overarching impact of the various stories is so bleak that I'm left wondering why anyon...more
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recommends it for:
my Republican rancher father, who will love the covers off this book
If you already know why Annie Proulx rox ur fuckin face off, then I don't know why you're reading a review instead of the book itself. It's Annie Fuckin Proulx. Read it, you bastard.
Proulx gets away with all the shit that no one else could. A grab bag of voices, all unlikely, that switch mid-sentence; stories that end long after the first narrative arc dead-ended and long before the second gets off the ground; nonsensical lines that don't mean squat no matter how you squint but sure sound pu...more
Proulx gets away with all the shit that no one else could. A grab bag of voices, all unlikely, that switch mid-sentence; stories that end long after the first narrative arc dead-ended and long before the second gets off the ground; nonsensical lines that don't mean squat no matter how you squint but sure sound pu...more
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Read in July, 2007
I picked Close Range up after reading a story in Texas Monthly about an Episcopalian Private school in Austin that refused to take "Brokeback Mountain" off their senior reading list when they received some rather aggressive complaints. Besides Brokeback's complex messages about tolerance and love, it's incredibly well written and I applauded the school in standing firmly behind it. The collection as a whole is mostly of the same quality. Other notable stories include "Half-Skinned...more
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Read in March, 2008
there is a lot of overlap b/w stories in this collection, but which added to the really strong sense of culture and landscape in the deep stretches of WY or dakotas or wherever this is, with which i'm obviously unfamiliar. i'm enthralled w/ the brutality of these characters and everyday life-- which is really true to rural culture and the hard-ass kinda people who'd settle & survive this region.
on a side-note, i read for the first time the "brokeback mtn." story, & feel like ...more
on a side-note, i read for the first time the "brokeback mtn." story, & feel like ...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Cowboy story fans
I bought this book so I could read "Brokeback Mountain", and that turned out to be my favourite story in this book, though I read all the rest as well. Turns out that I don't actually enjoy Proulx's short stories (or her cowboy stories, maybe), particularly. Some of her phrasing is delightful and a fine example of the art of packing a lot of meaning into a few words, as is essential in short fiction, but some of the stories just wander along aimlessly and peter out rather than finishin...more
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Read in November, 2007
As most people, I discovered this book only after I had watched the movie "Brokeback Mountain". The short story on which it is based is, as I expected, pure genius. But the other stories are amazing, too. I loved "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World" and "Blood Bay". The characters are lovingly portrayed, and I couldn't help but feel affection for them, even though most of them I couldn't really relate to. The stories are too far removed from what I call my every day l...more
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Read in November, 2007
Remarkable prose, but I guess that's to be expected from Proulx.
I wanted to read Brokeback Mountain in its original form to see the source for such an incredible movie, and I wasn't disappointed. The movie was such a faithful adaptation of the short story (from this volume) that they included almost every piece of dialogue from the story in the movie script.
My only wish is that I had read the book before the movie, since I had the score from the film going through my head the whol...more
I wanted to read Brokeback Mountain in its original form to see the source for such an incredible movie, and I wasn't disappointed. The movie was such a faithful adaptation of the short story (from this volume) that they included almost every piece of dialogue from the story in the movie script.
My only wish is that I had read the book before the movie, since I had the score from the film going through my head the whol...more
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Read in August, 2008
I read Brokeback Mountain in the New Yorker before seeing the film. Loved it. Got excited when I saw this collection on a staff pick shelf at my local library. Had a hard time with several of the stories, as a vegetarian who despises the rodeo (but loves cowboy boots). Well, what did I think would fill the pages of a book about ranch life?
Proulx's stories are not romantic, nor are her characters. They're cold, gritty, miserable, and painfully private, and they set the context for the tale of...more
Proulx's stories are not romantic, nor are her characters. They're cold, gritty, miserable, and painfully private, and they set the context for the tale of...more
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Read in January, 2001
I picked up this book in the Salt Lake City Airport to read while returning from a ski trip. I could not put it down and the three hour flight was over much too soon. Proulx does a superb job of showing the reader the world through the eyes of her characters--as often as not, this is a distorted view of the world, with a bleak outlook and with small dramas exaggerated by the not-so-worldly lives in which the characters imprisoned. One of the short stories in this book was the basis for the movie...more
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