Yes, it's That Old Ace in the Hole - I found my self cackling alot when I read it, the style was just so ______??? Dry humor??? Satire, irony? You see, it's been quite awhile since I was in college. Do you know I got distracted and didn't finish the book - maybe I will now.
So Brokeback is quick - maybe I'll read it then; I found it poignant. Like a Tragedy. An ironic tragedy, like Shakespeare. Am I right?
Thanks for the tip on Accordian - I didn't like the Shipping News too much, did you? I'm going to do alot of reading this summer.
I have a great idea!!!! Maybe we could start a thread on plays and great books, and musicals, and you could teach us some things. I would love that!!!!!! Like when I go to New York City, I have no idea which plays are really good. Also we have alot of plays around here. Some of them are great, like the Buddy Holly Story, and then I saw a "Mamet" play; I saw West Side Story; it was great - it's amazing how the locals can put on a great performance. Actually, people come from all over to perform here.
Actually, I consider Brokeback Mountain and Far From Heaven (Dennis Quaid) to both be more like plays than movies.
Oh, have you ever read Sarah Bird? She lives around here (The Flamenco Academy);Yakota Officer's Club, Alamo House.
She's really witty, writes for Texas Monthly. I know her, and she's "something else". Sorry this post is so long!!!!
Not to worry about length, Martha. This thread was pretty well played out before we started our graduate seminar. I'll be happy to discuss any play I know, but I can't pretend I keep up on the latest Broadway shows. I'm a small town boy nowadays.
I loved
Far from Heaven, too, probably more than
Brokeback.
I had to look up "ironic tragedy," because I couldn't remember what it means. Northrop Frye coined the term to denote modern "heroes" who are relatively weak and pitiful and are brutalized by the power of society. Most German Expressionist heroes fit this bill and I can certainly see the
Brokeback guys as "ironic" tragic heroes according to this definition.
But I prefer Arthur Miller's definition of tragedy in his 1940s article, "Death and the Common Man." Miller was defending his own characters--such as Willie Loman--and those of Tennessee Williams against complaints that modern tragic heroes weren't sufficiently "noble" if compared to, say, Oedipus. His answer is similar to Frye's.
Miller argues that the modern hero refuses to bend in the face of a dehumanizing society and that very refusal IS his nobility. Miller concludes (and this is logically questionable, but I like it) that although the modern tragic hero is destroyed, we in the audience are inspired by his perseverance. (Miller was also responding to Brecht's argument that tragedy renders us numb and feeling powerless.)
I think we admire the
Brokeback guys because they refuse to bend to society's dictate that they love (or more likely, pretend to love) according to society's narrow rules of attraction. That Heath Ledger is left with nothing but a smelly shirt is tragic, but also inspiring because he has preserved the dignity that comes with being himself.
And that dignity is something we can all root for, gay or straight.
(I haven't read Sarah Bird, but I'll look for her.)
