Annie Proulx Gets Pornish Rewrites
Almost every short story writer dreams that her work will pique the interest of those in Hollywood and be made into a film, but the audience for a film may be a different type of person than a reader of short stories.
According to an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Annie Proulx shares with us the effect of the success “Brokeback Mountain” has had on her career:
“Brokeback Mountain” has had little effect on my writing life, but is the source of constant irritation in my private life. There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story. They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for “fixing” the story. They certainly don’t get the message that if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it. Most of these “fix-it” tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men’s children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, “I’m not gay but….” They do not understand the original story, they know nothing of copyright infringement—i.e., that the characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property—and, beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can. They have not a clue that the original “Brokeback Mountain” was part of a collection of stories about Wyoming exploring mores and myths. The general impression I get is that they are bouncing off the film, not the story. There’s more, but that is enough, ok?
Proulx shares where she gets ideas for her stories, how she comes up with names for her characters, and why she thinks the short story is the superior literary form.
The interview can be found here.
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An interesting quote, topic, interview. For fun I checked one of the better known fan fiction websites. There are many rewrites and updates to her story there. In fact, one writer inserts the late Heath Ledger into the narrative and continues the story in the hereafter. Formally bringing film and short story together, I guess.
Comment by KN — September 28, 2008 @ 7:07 pm