Brokeback Mountain

I was reluctant to read the story. I admit it. I feared graphic descriptions and I feared that being a cowboy story, I would not even get into it. Well, my fears were justified in many regards, but the story itself, and I mean the core plot, is actually really, really nice and well done.

Brokeback Mountain is the story of two cowboys, Jack and Ennis who, while on a sheep herding job, fall in love with each other after a one night stand in the mountains described in vivid detail. The men part ways and get married. However, Jack reveals to Ennis that he would be coming into town. The men meet outside Ennis' apartment and passionately kiss, and all while Ennis' wife is watching. They have more sex after a night of drinking and, though they don't admit it, they fall in love with each other.

They end up meeting up for "fishing trips", and Ennis' wife gets fed up with the whole ordeal. She and Ennis divorce, and Ennis gets into a fierce arguement with Jack. Later on, Ennis sends a postcard to Jack, but it returns stamped DECEASED. Jack, it seems, was killed changing a tire which exploded, bashing in his face. But Ennis knows deep inside that he was probably murdered as he had seen the aftermath of a murder his own father had committed against an older homosexual man.

Ennis travels to request Jack's ashes which he willed would be scattered on Brokeback Mountain. Jack's parents refuse, or rather his father refuses. His mother invites him into Jack's old room where Ennis discovers two shirts tucked into one another: his own and Jack's. In the end, he sets up a little shrine to his lover with a postcard of the mountain and the shirts.

I am surprised how much I actually enjoyed the core plot. But the story was written in a way that it encompassed over twenty years, and Jack and Ennis are easily confused for one another. I had trouble keeping up with who was who.

I really don't think that it was necessary for the author to describe the sexual acts so vividly. It would have taken much less than what she wrote to convey the same things about the men.

I am definitely hesitant to see the film. Apparently, the story was adapted exactly as it was written. I hope the director had enough sense to use less graphic imagery.