Brokeback Mountain is a poem hidden away under beautiful prose. It is a short story, about 55 pages, yet it is profoundly heartwarming, with a subtle flow of true emotions and comes across as a refreshing, cool, light rain showering on your heart but comes back to haunt you and touches your soul in the deepest way.
I had seen the movie last year. It was kind of slow, but the beauty of the story was uniquely brilliant. So when I saw the book at the library I instantly grabbed it and read it within a couple of hours. It is all about 2 guys, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, coming to know each other while herding sheep on Brokeback mountain. It is the sad story of their difficult lives, separate yet entwined, and your heart reaches out to them. It is a remarkably enchanting story of forbidden love and longing.
The prose is astoundingly elegant and beautiful. Annie Proulx, critically acclaimed author and Pulitzer prize winner, writes as if painting a beautiful picture. The story flows like a serene river – quiet, beautiful, calm and exceedingly sure of itself. See a couple of excerpts to get a taste of her eloquent prose-
“They stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis’s breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight and Jack leaned against the steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity and, standing, he fell into sleep that was not sleep but something else drowsy and tranced until Ennis, dredging up a rusty but still usable phrase from the childhood time before his mother died, said, “Time to hit the hay, cowboy. I got a go”.”
“Without getting up he threw deadwood on the fire, the sparks flying up with their truths and lies, a few hot points of fire landing on their hands and faces, not for the first time, and they rolled down into the dirt. One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by the sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough.”
Sure enough, I never get enough of stories as beautifully told as this. Never enough.
5 stars, if not more.
