Brokeback Mountain, the movie, is getting a lot of buzz these days, both positive and negative, for its excellence as a piece of storytelling and filmmaking as well as its controversial theme. I read the short story by Annie Proulx, orginally published in The New Yorker and included in her collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories, last year. And I read it again, twice, last week. It’s one of those stories that just takes the top of my head off.
I am on my way to see the movie tonight. I don’t see many films in theaters, preferring to wait for the DVD release. But this one I have to see right away, if only to look at the scenery. Here are a few passages worth pulling out:
One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.
Jack, the more adventurous of the pair, wants Ennis to travel with him. Ennis tells him: “Mexico? Jack, you know me. All the travelin I ever done is goin around the coffeepot lookin for the handle.” . . . and Jack replies: “You used to come away easy. It’s like seein the pope now.”