My Weekly Book

Close Range - Annie Proulx

This is an intimidating review to write, because I’m very conscious of being in the presence of Proper Literature. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Contrary to some who have, apparently, declared Proulx’ work to be impenetrable and difficult to understand, I found this engaging and absorbing and I didn’t have any trouble on that score at all. The book contains 11 short stories of varying lengths, all dealing with the lives of ranchers in the state of Wyoming. Some of the tales are less than two pages; others are practically novellas. Although, at first glance, the principal characters are mostly male, you soon realise there is an underlying but nevertheless powerful female presence too. It time it ranges from 1886 to the turn of the 20th century and features a cast of characters ranging from babes in arms to centenarians.

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So much for the facts. The things that makes this collection such compelling reading are as follows; the feeling of breaking into a closed community of people that most of us could never normally gain access to and getting an insight into it; a magical touch with language and idiom; macabre use of humour and the juxtaposition of shocking and tragic events with banal and funny ones; and, possibly most important, the ability to create complex and interesting characters with a few brief but strong strokes of the pen and to make them likeable, capricious, weak, rigid, brutal or appalling, often all at once.

This is, of course, the anthology that contains the 30-odd page short story Brokeback Mountain. This has now become the focus of this volume to such an extent that the copy I just bought has more or less been renamed. Now it says ‘Close Range:’ in very small letters, ‘BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN’ in huge ones then ‘and other stories’ right back in the tiny type underneath – and a still from the film is the cover image. I think this is both a good and a bad thing – it hardly seems wrong to publicise the collection based on its overwhelmingly most popular story, and it will be a way into Proulx’ work for many people. It is also a story that’s haunting, almost compulsive, reading and which stays with you for a long time. (I haven’t seen the film yet because a) I wanted to read the story first and b) frankly speaking, [SPOILER] sad stuff in movies makes me sob like a baby [/SPOILER].)

But there is no doubt that this approach does a grave injustice to the other ten stories in the anthology. For a start, Brokeback Mountain is a long way from being typical with its smaller cast of characters and more focused narrative. And, if you read in chronological order and resist the urge to skip, it’s the last one in the collection. To describe it an afterthought would probably be inaccurate, a coda would seem a better term. It has a different texture to the other stories, it feels like an oddity, a polished stone among rough pebbles, maybe. It would be nice to think that if you do have the urge to pick this book up, you might read it thoroughly from the front and not just skip straight to the last 30 pages.

Now, I know I bought a copy of The Shipping News a while back. I can even tell you where and when I bought it, but sadly not where it is at the moment. I wonder what I did with it?

Some links:

• Author’s official homepage
• Wikipedia article
• Blood on the Red Carpet: Proulx on the Oscars
• A reader’s manifesto: criticism of Proulx (Wikipedia article)
• The Advocate: Brokeback Mountain interview
• Bookslut interview
• The Guardian: a Proulx short story
• Story guides: Annie Proulx interview
• Librarything: Annie Proulx

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 9:03 pm and is filed under 2007 reading challenge, Reads I recommend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.