Dark Humour in Rural America
Review of Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx

By Leah Giesbrecht

 

Amie Proulx’s “Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories”
chronicles the lives of the hard, scarred, wild
people who inhabit the small towns and isolated
ranches of Wyoming. Life is unforgiving in this
collection of eleven short stories—
—“‘there is something wrong with
everyone and it’s up to you to know
what you can handle.” Themes
of desperation, betrayal, survival,
and self-discovery run through
the book and touch its characters. |
The Wyoming landscape looms: |
as large as any character in this +
collection; Proulx masterfully

overgrazing, and refineries, but
unbroken in its fierce beauty and
unflagging harshness. Like the’ jae,
human characters she creates, ae
the landscape is damaged, but jer’ :
resilient. .

Proulx’ is sometimes
compared to: William Faulkner for her black
humour; her sharp wit helps balance the bleak
existence most of her characters lead. In “The
Hellhole,” a portal to the underworld appears in

the Wyoming wilderness,.to the delight of a local

  
  
  

THE IHEP HI ewe

January 21, 2008

game warden, Creel Zdmundzinski. Zdmundzinski
uses the hellhole to save himself paperwork; he
disposes of poachers into this fiery orifice instead
of writing them tickets. Along with humour, the
whimsical quality of Proulx’s writing makes these
stories unique. Elements of the
fairytale and fable appear, and
magic and the unexpected glint
throughout the book. In “Dump
Junk” a magic teakettle grants
the wishes of a poverty-stricken
family, and in “The Old Badger
| Game” a badger contemplates how
to best seduce a rancher’s wife.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, Proulx

depicts a ldnd abused by mining, Annie Proulx has eight books to her credit. She is

perhaps best known for having one
of her Wyoming stories, “Brokeback
; Mountain,” turned into a film. by
ee “= Ang Lee. In “Bad Dirt,” Proulx’s
Mee spare, unflinching writing . gives
“e) the reader a window into the lives
of unremarkable, often desperate
people, made remarkable by her skilful use of
language. “Bad Dirt” demonstrates why Proulx is
one of America’s most talented living writers, and
will be.enjoyed by readers who appreciate black
humour, the bizarre, and taut; evocative prose.

 

Song of the Week

 

“Anti-Christ Television Blues” by The Arcade Fire : :

By Pat Mackenzie

 

66 ‘

Prsicenca Television Blues”
by the Arcade. Fire contains some
pretty. provocative lyrics. Beginning
with an acoustic guitar that lays down
the song’s shambling rhythm, Win
Butler, sounding uncannily like Bruce
Springsteen, sings, “I don’t wanna work
in a building downtown/No I don’t:
wanna work in a building downtown/I
don’t know what I’m gonna do/Cause
the planes keep crashing always two by
two/I don’t wanna work in a building
downtown/No I don’t wanna see when
the planes hit the ground.” Anyone
familiar with relatively recent world
events will not be able to avoid the direct
reference to a certain terrorist attack, but
“Anti-Christ Television Blues,” rather
than existing as mere commentary on
international relations, seems to be
criticizing the religious institutions
that directly influence the extremity of
behavior that lead to appalling acts of
violence and other forms of anti-social
behavior—particularly that of female
objectification.

Although vivid and disturbing, the
opening lines serve to draw the listener’s
attention to the more unsettling words
that follow. Sung over the both poppy and
urgent-sounding music, the lyrics paint
a dark picture of religious subjugation
and the patriarchal domination and
control of women. Considering that the
Arcade Fire hail from Montreal (and that
Win Butler was raised in the religious
hearth of Texas), the apparent subject
matter of “Anti-Christ” is perhaps not
surprising. Well into the later half of the
20" century, the Roman Catholic Church

held an enormous amount of power in
Quebee. Furthermore, many would argue
that the ehurch’s power was oppressive
and geared towards privileging a male-
dominated: clergy. Other songs on Neon
Bible, the album from which “Anti-
Christ” is taken, seem to be far more
specific in trying to relate’ a history
of church oppression, but the song’s
imagery of a woman’s unrewarding
toil is inextricably linked to religious
institutions: “Dear God, I’m a good
Christian man/In your glory, I know you
understand/That you gotta work hard
and you gotta get paid/My girl’s 13 but
she don’t act her age/She can sing like a
bird in a cage/O Lord, if you could see
her when she’s up on that stage!”

The words of “Anti-Christ” are
conflicted—indeed they are the words
of a desperate man who understands,
and is appalled by the injustice in the
world, but is forced to play by another’s
rules nonetheless: “Little girl, you’re old
enough to understand/That you’ll always
be a stranger in a strange, strange land/
The men are gonna come when you’re
fast asleep/So you better just stay close
and hold onto me/If my little mocking
bird don’t sing/Then daddy won’t buy
her no diamond ring.”

The recurring imagery of female
objectification gives the song a view
onto the world that is at once despairing.
That it appears to be tying that
objectification to established institutions
and ways of thinking makes “Anti-Christ
Television Blues” both provocative and
threatening.

Pretty good for a pop song.

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