Author Topic: Love is NOT a force of nature  (Read 10495 times)

Offline septuaginarian

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Love is NOT a force of nature
« on: Feb 06, 2006, 12:20 AM »
After seeing Brokeback Mountain for the first time, I came away overwhelmed, not the least, by the breathtaking scenery; it added pathos to the little human dilemma that was taking place amidst it.

Spurred on to read more of Annie Proulx, I found the following prologue to her short story ‘People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water’ (“Close Range: Wyoming Stories”):

You stand there, braced. Cloud Shadows race over the buff rock stacks as a projected film, casting a queasy, mottled ground rash. The air hisses and it is no local breeze but the great harsh sweep of wind from the turning of the earth. The wild country-indigo jags of mountain, grassy plain everlasting, tumbled stones like fallen cities, the flaring roll of sky-provokes a  spiritual shudder. It is like a deep note that cannot be heard but is felt, it is like a claw in the gut.

Dangerous and indifferent ground: against its fixed mass the tragedies of people count for nothing although the signs of misadventure are everywhere. No past slaughter nor cruelty, no accident nor murder that occurs on the little ranches or at the isolate crossroads with their bare populations of three or seventeen, or in the reckless trailer courts of mining towns delays the flood of morning light. Fences cattle, roads, refineries, mines, gravel pits, traffic lights, graffiti’d celebration of athletic victory on bridge overpass, crust of blood on the Wal-Mart loading dock, the sun-faded wreaths of plastic flowers marking death on the highway are ephemeral. Other cultures have camped here a while and disappeared. Only earth and sky matter. Only the endlessly repeated flood of morning light. You begin to see that God does not owe us much beyond that.


Doesn’t the “wild country-indigo jags of mountain, grassy plain everlasting” found in Brokeback Mountain have the same significance?

Ennis’ and Jack’s tragedy hurts us all the more because, against the Mountain,  they both are so ephemeral.
« Last Edit: Feb 06, 2006, 12:32 AM by septuaginarian »
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Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #1 on: Feb 24, 2006, 06:16 PM »
I am looking at that most beautiful passage in BBM in which Jack remembers their silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger, and thinking that nothing could be further from Annie Proulx’s intent than that love is a force of nature.

. . . the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock.

The rock feels nothing whatsoever.

. . . minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket.

Time’s irreversible arrow could not have been more cruel to them.

Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire.

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.*

When Ennis leaves there is grind of hoof on stone.

Rock . . . time . . . stars . . . stone—this is the stuff of the force of nature.

What Jack remembers is the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives.

Jack had leaned against Ennis’s steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity.

Love is more like, as here, the faint electrical activity of a beating, human heart--in an uncomprehending and indifferent universe.

The force of nature is something else altogether different from love—nature is more like the wind that struck Ennis’s trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, said Annie Proulx, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence.
_______________________________________

*Blaise Pascal
« Last Edit: Mar 04, 2006, 12:18 PM by septuaginarian »
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Offline *Froggy*

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #2 on: Feb 25, 2006, 06:01 PM »
Merged topics as agreed. ;)
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Offline tpe

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #3 on: Feb 26, 2006, 04:22 PM »
I am looking at that most beautiful passage in BBM in which Jack remembers their silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger, and thinking that nothing could be further from Annie Proulx’s intent than that love is a force of nature.

. . . the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock.

The rock feels nothing whatsoever.

. . . minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket.

Time’s irreversible arrow could not have been more cruel to them.

Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire.

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie.*

When Ennis leaves there is grind of hoof on stone.

Rock . . . time . . . stars . . . stone—this is the stuff of the force of nature

What Jack remembers is the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives.

Jack had leaned against Ennis’s steady heartbeat, the vibrations of the humming like faint electricity.

Love is more like, as here, the faint electrical activity of a beating, human heart--in an uncomprehending and indifferent universe.

The force of nature is something else altogether different from love—nature is more like the wind that struck Ennis’s trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, said Annie Proulx, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence.
_______________________________________

*Blaise Pascal

Thanks so much, septuaginarian for the very thoughtful observations.  I agree,  crags and rocks appear to be a prevalent image in a number of Proulx stories.  And I agree with you, the adamantine image juxtoposed in the 'embrace' passage is powerful yet very tender and intimate.  A 'rough' image with the most elegant and poetic undertones.

Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #4 on: Feb 26, 2006, 06:22 PM »
Thanks, Froggy, for putting these two posts together for me. They help each other out. And, tpe, for the roses.

(I see, tpe, unless "adamantine" is for you just another household word, that you read my other post also <headlong, irreversible fall>, where Milton used it.  :D)
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Offline tpe

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #5 on: Feb 26, 2006, 06:27 PM »
(I see, tpe, unless "adamantine" is for you just another household word, that you read my other post also <headlong, irreversible fall>, where Milton used it.  :D)

Hello septuaginarian.  Also, don't forget the use of this image in the Rev. Maturin's gothic romance, 'Melmoth the Wanderer'.  The image of the rock in this novel is, of course, far more sinister and hellish than is applicable in this context, but worth noting also.  After all, Maturin did love his Milton. :)
« Last Edit: Feb 26, 2006, 06:43 PM by tpe »

Offline *Froggy*

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #6 on: Feb 26, 2006, 06:29 PM »
Thanks, Froggy, for putting these two posts together for me. 
no problems, x
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If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
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Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #7 on: Feb 26, 2006, 06:35 PM »

Hello septuaginarian.  Also, don't forget the use of this image in the Rev. Maturin's gothic romance, 'Melmoth the Wanderer'.  The image of the rock in this novel is, of course, far more sinister and hellish than is applicable in this context, but worth noting also.  After all, Maturin did love his Milton. :)
Quote

Hello tpe. I see that for you "adamantine" is just another household word. Please quote the appropriate Maturin. I don't know it.
« Last Edit: Feb 26, 2006, 06:43 PM by tpe »
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Offline tpe

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #8 on: Feb 26, 2006, 06:39 PM »

Hello septuaginarian.  Also, don't forget the use of this image in the Rev. Maturin's gothic romance, 'Melmoth the Wanderer'.  The image of the rock in this novel is, of course, far more sinister and hellish than is applicable in this context, but worth noting also.  After all, Maturin did love his Milton. :)
Quote

Hello tpe. I see that for you "adamantine" is just another household word. Please quote the appropriate Maturin. I don't know it.

Hello, septuaginarian, I'll try to find an online text to quote (perhaps from Project Gutenberg).  I'll post it later. :)   It is the final section that shows Melmoth being swallowed into Hell. ;)
« Last Edit: Feb 26, 2006, 06:43 PM by tpe »

Offline tpe

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #9 on: Feb 26, 2006, 06:49 PM »
Hello, septuaginarian, I'll try to find an online text to quote (perhaps from Project Gutenberg).  I'll post it later. :)   It is the final section that shows Melmoth being swallowed into Hell. ;)

Sorry septuaginarian, can't find a convenient online version.  I'll have to get the text myself (I'll try to find it in my library -- been a while!) or else keep trying to seearch online.

Back to the original point, BBM itself can be though of as such an adamantine rock.  It is unchangeable in the face of love, death, and resignation.

Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #10 on: Feb 26, 2006, 09:03 PM »

BBM itself can be thought of as such an adamantine rock.  It is unchangeable in the face of love, death, and resignation.
Quote

Absolutely, tpe, BBM is set in stone.

As the image of Niobe sets the Iliad in stone: Achilles, who lost his friend Patroklos and Priam, his son Hector:

For even Niobe, she of the lovely tresses, remembered
To eat, whose twelve children were destroyed in her palace,
Six daughters, and six sons in the pride of their youth, whom Apollo killed with arrows from his silver bow, being angered
With Niobe, and shaft-showering Artemis killed the daughters;
. . .
And now somewhere among the rocks, in the lonely mountains,
In Sipylos, where they say is the resting place of the goddeses
Who are nymphs, and dance beside the waters of Acheloios,
There, stone still, she broods on the sorrows that the gods gave her.[/i]

Iliad, XXIV, 602-617, translated by Richard Lattimore
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Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #11 on: Feb 27, 2006, 12:34 PM »
BBM itself can be thought of as such an adamantine rock.  It is unchangeable in the face of love, death, and resignation.

In your post, tpe, I first took “BBM” to refer to the story, as a play of Sophocles or a story by Annie Proulx is a polished gem.

But I think I see now that by “BBM” you meant  the “fixed mass” of mountain itself against which the tragedy takes place.

Your view is spelled out by Proulx’s own characterization of the mountain:

The boys’ first morning on the mountain, its sooty bulk, like a false dawn, paled slowly.

Then, more forbiddingly, Jack . . . saw Ennis as fire on the huge black mass of  mountain.

And finally when they depart at the end of the summer the mountain has become something monstrous:

The mountain boiled with daemonic energy, . . . the wind . . . drew
from the . . .slit rock a bestial tone.

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Offline tpe

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #12 on: Feb 27, 2006, 01:03 PM »
Thanks septuaginarian for the correspondences.  Indeed, the different faces and aspects of BBM are drawn by Proulx with great beauty.

My favorite correspondence occurs in the section where Ennis introduces Jack to Alma.  In this wonderful passage, Ennis revels in Jack's physical presence -- and with it comes the bracing cold of the mountain.

Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #13 on: Feb 27, 2006, 09:52 PM »
Thanks, tpe, for your favorite correspondence. I took a closer look at it and found it a favorite too.

What could he say? “Alma, this is Jack Twist. Jack, my wife Alma. His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack—the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky sweat and a faint sweetness like grass, and with the rushing cold of the mountain. “Alma, he said, . .

The awkward, abrupt transition from the pleasant smell of Jack, to the uncomfortable feeling of chill, informs Ennis’s first words to Alma with the rushing cold of the mountain.

What Ennis smelled was very, very different from what he felt.
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Offline tpe

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #14 on: Feb 28, 2006, 08:48 AM »
Thanks, tpe, for your favorite correspondence. I took a closer look at it and found it a favorite too.

What could he say? “Alma, this is Jack Twist. Jack, my wife Alma. His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack—the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky sweat and a faint sweetness like grass, and with the rushing cold of the mountain. “Alma, he said, . .

The awkward, abrupt transition from the pleasant smell of Jack, to the uncomfortable feeling of chill, informs Ennis’s first words to Alma with the rushing cold of the mountain.

What Ennis smelled was very, very different from what he felt.


septuaginarian, I thnik this scene is the one where the mountain comes closest to be an actual physical presence in the story -- it is mixed in with Ennis's and Jack's irrepressible need to be with each other.  It is as if the mountain has lain asleep for 4 years and suddenly rises like some unstoppable force when Ennis and Jack finally meet again. 

And the phrase: 'Old Brokeback got us good' really brings to mind images of 'the old man of the mountain' -- i.e., some mythical force that binds and must be appeased.

Offline septuaginarian

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Re: Love is NOT a force of nature
« Reply #15 on: Feb 28, 2006, 10:51 AM »
It is as if the mountain has lain asleep for 4 years and suddenly rises like some unstoppable force when Ennis and Jack finally meet again. 

And the phrase: 'Old Brokeback got us good' really brings to mind images of 'the old man of the mountain' -- i.e., some mythical force that binds and must be appeased.
Quote

Remember not Lord our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take thou vengeaunce of our synnes: spare us good Lorde, spare thy people, whom thou hast redemed with thy most precious bloude, and be not angry wyth us for ever:

Spare us good lorde.

From all evyll and myschief, from synne, from the craftes and assaultes of the devill, from thy wrath, and from everlastyng damnacion.

Good lorde delyuer us

From blindnes of hearte, from pryde, vaynglory, and hypocrisy, from envy, harred and malice, and all uncharytablenes:

Good lorde deliver us.

From all fornycacion and all deadly synne, and from all the deceiptes of the worlde, the fleshe, and the devill:

Good lorde deliver us.

From lightnyng and tempast, from plage, pestilence and famyne, from battayle and murder, & from sodaine death:

We beseche the to here us good lord.

That it maye please the to gyve all thy people increase of grace, to here mekelye thy worde, and to receive it with pure affection, and to brynge forth the fruites of the spirit:

We beseche the to here us good lord.

That it maye please the to bryng into the waie of truth all suche as have erred and are deceyved:

We beseche the to here us good lord.

That it maye please the to strengthen such as do stande, and to comfort and helpe the weake hearted, and to rayse up them that fall, and fynallye to beate downe Sathan under our feete:

We beseche the to here us good lord.

That it maye please the to succour helpe and comfort al that be in daunger, necessitie and trybulacion:

We beseche the to here us good lord.

That it maye please the to have mercye upon all men:

We beseche the to here us good lord.

That it maye please the to forgeve our enemies, persecutours and slaunderers, and to turne theyr heartes:

We beseche the to here us good lord.


Cranmer’s 1544 Exortation and Litany*

____________________________________________

*(http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Litany1544/Litany_1544.htm




« Last Edit: Feb 28, 2006, 09:43 PM by septuaginarian »
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