Collect Fine Just The Way It Is (Wyoming Stories, #3) Documented By Annie Proulx Depicted In Physical Book

her collections, this is the only one that is only just good, Some of the stories didn't strike much of anything, though others shined, Some stories kind of seemed like the scraps left out of other collections, Rather a downer of subject material but readable, Series of short stories. I dont think any has a happy ending, but that doesnt detract from the stories, “That was the trouble with Wyoming everything you ever did or said kept pace with you right to the end.
”

When it comes to description, Annie Proulx is undoubtedly one of the best and most unique writers out there.
With her blunt, unsparing prose, a fierce intellect and a coal black sense of humor, Proulx can paint a vivid and stark portrait of American life, and nowhere is this on better display than in her Wyoming Stories, where the hardscrabble existences of her characters go hand in hand with the bleak words used to describe them.
Heres how she introduces one of her characters in “Them Old Cowboy Songs”: “Archie had a face as smooth as a skinned aspen, his lips barely incised on the surface as though scratched in with a knife.
” Theres a paragraph from “The HalfSkinned Steer” in Close Range , the first installment of the Wyoming series, which still gives me the chills years after I first read it.


Proulxs descriptive power is, primarily, what keeps me coming back to the Wyoming stories, even though neither of the sequels has been able to match the power of Close Range which also has the distinction of birthing “Brokeback Mountain,” the story the movie was based on.
To tell the truth, each installment pales in comparison to the one that preceded it, Proulx has a fascination for fantasy elements that pop up in her stories that doesnt entirely suit her style at least not when shes writing about the devil, who puts in a whopping two appearances in Fine Just the Way it is .
“The Sagebrush Kid,” about a maneating, giantsize sage plant, captures something of a Twilight Zone vibe that makes it work, and still almost the entire middle section of this collection is taken up with the weakest form of Proulxs writing.
Compare this to only one outthere story in Bad Dirt , and hardly any in Close Range,

The bookends of Fine Just the Way it is are where it truly shines, and sure enough those stories are the ones that play to the intention of the Wyoming stories the best: sliceoflife vignettes that capture the essence of the hard living in such a violent, unpredictable location and the tough breed of human that it takes to live there.
“Family Man” opens the collection by spotlighting Ray Forkenbrock, closing out his life in a retirement home and wondering just where the honor in his existence has gone, if there ever was any.
Proulx closes it with “Titsup in a Ditch” which just might be the best name of a short story ever, although the meaning behind the title makes you feel bad for the immature giggle it gives you when you first catch sight of it, about naïve young Dakotah Lister, who enlists in the army and gets sent to Iraq after a failed marriage leaves her with no job prospects and no way to pay for the son her soontobeex husband left her with.
While there are some winning moments in between, it is these stories that are the real winners in this collection.
Aside from the fantasy element that bogs down at least three of the stories, “DeepBloodGreasyBowl” feels like a research project more than a story indeed, Proulx pauses to explain that the impetus of the story was the discovery of an ancient firepit on her property and the research into Indian buffalo hunting that followed.


All in all, this is an uneven collection for Proulx, a supremely talented writer who may have been looking to shake things up a touch in her third visit to the Wyoming territory.


Grade: C Nyt hieman surettaa, että tämä trilogia on luettu, Proulx'n Wyomingnovellit ovat olleet lohduttomuudessaan ihanaa luettavaa, tässäkin oli monia mainioita tarinoita, Riipiviä, synkkiä ihmiskohtaloita, periksiantamattomuutta, ihmisten ja luonnon karuutta, Myös synkkää huumoria ja mainioita nimiä  Annie Proulx on erinomainen nimien keksijä,

There is no author better writing about a sense of place and then immersing the reader in that place, in this case once again, Annie Proulx's beloved Wyoming.
For these characters are striving after the idealised American Dream or that idealised Dream has passed them by forever really.
Life is tough, yet there is an acceptable, sometimes intolerable, resilience and persistence among these characters that, yes, life is a bitch and it is a daily struggle.
This is the other side to America, The America we are not used to hearing in the positive propaganda peddled by politicians, Yet, these are very real loyal American citizens leading real lives in today's America, The recession and Iraq make their visits in themes, Many of the stories, while downbeat are emotionally touching and not lacking in black humour, not least the excellent "TitsUp In A Ditch".
Wyoming is tough and it's people tougher, As per all the writing of Annie Proulx, man's interactions with nature, and sometimes man's struggles with nature, are vividly described and vital to "getting" her writing style.
There are also two stories of darkest humour about old Nick, the devil himself, just to mischievously sow a seed of doubt amongst us atheists and agnostics.
Or, is the author herself mirroring her own doubts and questions as she, let's politely put it, begins to enter those years of twilight One of America's greatest living writers and consistently so.
Il selvaggio west del mio immaginario non era duro come questi racconti,
Lasciate ogni speranza, o voi che leggete,
Non cè nessun lieto fine per i protagonisti di Annie Proulx, siano essi i primi avventurieri del Wyoming o personaggi contemporanei: la vita è dura, soprattutto per i più poveri.

La scrittura di Annie Proulx è così vivida da segnare profondamente e questi racconti vanno letti con moderazione, un po alla volta.


Secondo la leggenda, i pionieri entravano nel paese, si facevano assegnare un pezzo di terra, vivevano di stenti, crescevano nidiate di bambini scalzi e fondavano dinastie di rancher.
Per alcuni fu così. Ma molti ebbero vita breve e vennero presto dimenticati, Im such a lazy person, Too often I write really quite the best reviews in the world in my head and thats enough for me.
I move on. They never see the light of day,

I read this at the same time as I read my first book of Alice Munro stories and my first inclination was to write something where something of a shadow cast over Munro would be to the benefit of Proulx, a writer who has never disappointed me and Ive read all of them.
Checking, I see that Im talking about earlyover four years ago, and this book by Proulx has been sitting in my queue, waiting for a mention and shes coming out now, courtesy of my spring clean.


rest hereL sitelink wordpre From Pulitzer Prizewinning author Annie Proulx, an "unforgettable" Miami Herald and "vivid" Oprah Daily collection of stories set in Wyoming.


Winner of two O, Henry

Prizes, Annie Proulx has been anthologized in nearly every major collection of great American stories, Her bold, inimitable language, her exhilarating eye for detail, her dark sense of humor, and her compassion inform this profoundly compelling collection of stories.


Proulx creates a fierce, visceral panorama of American folly and fate in these nine dazzling stories about multiple generations of Americans struggling through life in the West.
Each character is a pioneer of a sortsome are billionaires, some are escapists, and some just think the rest of the country has it wrong.
Deeply sympathetic to the men and women fighting to survive in this harsh place, Proulx turns their lives into fiction with the power of myth, leaving the reader in awe.
I thought I would really like this book, first because I began it, coincidentally, just after I finished watching the TV series, Longmire, in which place, Wyoming, plays such a central role, as it does in Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories.
Second, the audiobook was read by Will Patton, my favorite reader of most of James Lee Burke's audiobooks, Third, though I didn't read Brokeback Mountain, I loved the movie, So, I was all set to get into this book, Though I really tried, I could not follow the stories, They weren't making any sense to me, I couldn't get the plot or meaning and the characters seemed forgettable, I know Annie Proulx is considered a fine writer, so I would rewind and listen again, but in the end, I finished maybeof theshort stories and I couldn't really tell you about any of them.
In reading reviews, the one that most got my attention was "Who needs hell when you've got Wyoming" The third volume of Proulx's Wyoming stories.
Her characters live hard lives, bleak, even brutal, The stories aren't happy but they are extremely well told, Annie Proulx has her own way of telling a story about the people who live in Wyoming and it isn't pretty, but made to seem realistic.
When I lived in Laramie and taught at the university, I knew several people who might have stepped right out of the pages of Fine Just the Way It Is.
True, that was pretty much their philosophy, But never has it been so apparent to me all the suffering that lies under that grin up and bear it facade.
And never have I read a more depressing story than “TitsUp in a Ditch, ” Im not sure Ill ever recover, To be born into such a family, then to meet a few people capable of expressing true thoughts and feelings, then to be yanked back home in grief, all that you loved wasted and ruined out of the same brute ignorance that killed your youth, and discover that youll spend the rest of your life caring for the warravaged body of a man you didnt love in the first place What makes the story worth the toll of anguish it takes on its readers is knowing that this really is life for many people, and no matter how much they claim its fine, it is not.
This dose of reality reminds me that I dont have it so bad right now, But things could get worse, It challenges my complacency. Life must bemust be!about something other than winning at the game of it, We all lose in the end, But oh the journey when youre riding along with Annie Prouxl! I know Wyoming, and now Ive seen it rendered in all its dimensions in twodimensional words.
Yksittäisille novelleille kaikenlaisia tähtiä väliltä, kokonaisuudelle,

Novellit joko kertoivat Wyomingista tai wyomingilaisista mielipideasia, Wyoming veti puoleensa hyväuskoisia seikkailijoita, viimeisiä cowboyta sekä miehiä ja nuoria pareja työn perässä,

Proulxin novelleissa on parhaimmillaan jännittävää uudisraivaajahenkeä, Heikoimpina hetkinä joutui uupumaan näiden kaikkien sukujen ja sukulaisten erämaassa, Pohjanoteeraus olivat silti "helvetilliset tarinat" eivät kuuluneet näihin kansiin eikä tähän tunnelmaan,

Proulx saa vaivatta samaistumaan heihin, joille jokaisen lantin ansaitseminen ja jokaisen talven selätys on saavutus, Ja heihin, joille aron viima, maiseman avaruus ja villi luonto päihittävät muut elämykset,

Lisäksi hehkutan Proulxin lopetuksia, Sitä, kun uskaltaa antaa tarinan kantaa eikä lopussa enää tarvita sanaakaan,

Lopetusten lisäksi kirjasta jäi mieleen maruna ilm, wormwood. Proulxin omaa marskimaata löytyi vähän joka novellista Marunalapsi nimisestä tuli jo yliannostus, Following on my short story kick, I read Alice Munro then Annie Proulx, At the end of that journey I'd like say that I think I'd prefer if these two authors were actually one author.
Munro has a tendency to describe the most minute variegates of emotion in a single social interaction, The way someone turns their head creates rippled of emotions, On the other side of that, Annie P will tell the story of a girl ignored and abused by her grandparents, yet just allude to the emotional interior of her character.


I think I'd like more of a balance from both authors, hence the Frankenstein blend I'm proposing, I found Proulx's plots better, but I preferred some of the emotional depth Munro gives her characters, I genuinely love Proulx's novels, and I think in a larger narrative she allows more space for that internal exploration.
Is anybody reading something that feels like good blend of these two I'm still on a short story quest, . . I'm going to have to just keep reading,

Furthermore, what was with two Devil stories They didn't really fit the theme of Wyoming Stories, Cue the Sesame Street song, "Which one of these is not like the others" After reading "Close Range", Proulx's brilliant short story collection that included "Brokeback Mountain" you can't help but think that the stories in "Bad Dirt" and now "Fine Just The Way Is" are not up to the same level of quality, I struggled with rating this collection.
Do I rate on the quality of writing, the quality of the stories, or how they made me feel

Proulx excels at writing about rural lifein describing the environment, people and regional dialects whether on the shores of Newfoundland in The Shipping News, Texas and Oklahoma in That Old Ace in the Hole, or rural Wyoming of her Wyoming Tales.
For example, in this collection describing the drought of a Wyoming summer in Them Old Cowboy Songs she writes: "July was hot, the air vibrating, the land dry like a scraped sheeps hoof.
The sun drew the color from everything and the Little Weed trickled through dull stones, In month even that trickle would be dried by the hot river rocks, the grass parched and preachers praying for rain.
"

In the same story she describes some of the cowboys of the Karok ranch: "Men raised from infancy around horses could identify salient differences with a glance, but some had a keener talent for understanding equine temperament the others.
Sink Gatrell was one of the those, the polar opposite of Montana broncbuster Wally Finch, who used a secret ghost cord and made unrideable outlaws of the horses he was breaking.
Sink gave off a hard air of competence, On roundup the elegant Brit remittance man Morton Frewen had once noticed him handling a nervous cloudwatcher horse and remarked that the rider had “divine hands.
”

Finally, Family Man gives a feel for Proulx command of dialect: “One time Joe knocked Harry out, kicked him into he Platte.
He could of drowned, probably would of but Dave Arthur was riding along the river, seen this bundle of rags snarled up in the cottonwood sweeperit had fell in the river and caught up all sorts of river trash.
. . Harry was about threequarter dead, never was right after that, neither, But right enough to know his own brother had meant to kill him, How couldnt never tell if Harry was going to be around the next corner with a chunk of wood or a gun.
”

Its no surprise that this the awarding winning writer can write, Why then in this collection of essentially old west tales does she choose to include three throw away tales completely out of character with the rest of the collection, that read like jokes vs serious writing.
Two feature the Devil planning updates to Hell:

“Construction workers!” the Devil shouted, “Their hard hats will melt, the scaffolds collapse unceasingly, Ice cream truck vendors A hot coal in each scoop of vanilla, ”

The third, a carnivorous cactus,

Really

And then there is the utter despair with which each of the real stories ends.


Family ManThe elderly Ray Forkenbrock laments his father allowing he and mother to live in poverty while fathering and supporting families with several other women across the region.


Them Old Cowboy SongsYoung couple homesteading on the Wyoming frontier is forced to separate so the husband can find work.
The husband freezes to death trying to return to his wife while the wife dies in child birth,

The Great DivideProverty stricken family loses father to kick by a horse,

Testimony of the DonkeyHiker becomes trapped and dies of exposure on an abandoned trail,

And the most miserable of the bunch, Tits Up in a DitchImprovished woman marries slacker who abandons her while pregnant to join the military.
She later joins leaving her son with her parents, Has her arm blown off in Iraq and returns home to find her son dead and her disfigured and vegetative husband dropped on her doorstep to care for.


Proulx needs a chill pill,

Bottomline: Threeish for the collection in totalthe serious stories are each three to four, the throw ways ones and twos.
Downgrade by one star for the hopelessness in each of the serious works and complete stupidity of the the throw aways.
Net two for me, one for each dollar I spent on this book, I would have regretted spending more,

On my buy, borrow, skip scale: Skip, .