Everywhere you turn

I haven't been able to open a page, an email or a window this week without seeing some reference to Brokeback Mountain.

New York Times movie reviewer Stephen Holden says Heath Ledger's performance is as good as the best of Marlon Brando or Sean Penn. The New Yorker's music citic Alex Ross (see December 4th post) likes the music, too: 'Brokeback Mountain is not merely the great gay movie that some of us have been waiting for our whole lives, but a classic portrait of American loneliness and longing. There's a haunting score by Gustavo Santaolalla, Golijov's collaborator on Ayre.'

Then there's the link in Wednesday's edition of The Reader to a good article in the UK's arts.telegraph about the importance of last lines in stories and novels, quoting good ones and bad ones and singling out for praise the last line of the Annie Proulx short story 'Brokeback Mountain' on which the movie is closely based, a line that takes your breath away and goes on resonating and resonating for days, something that's true of all of us, everywhere, all the time:

'There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.'

Make yourself a great big tough drink and then read the whole story, from The New Yorker archives, here.