Finally got around to reading the book, partly in hopes I'd enjoy it (I
did) and partly in hopes it would explain some things (it did.).
The book's prose is as gorgeous as the film's cinematography. The
author, Thomas Savage, grew up wealthy in Montana, living on ranches
like the one in the movie. His prose descriptions of the mountains, the
prairie grasses, the clean air, the smells, the animals...are like
poetry and just as descriptive as the movie's magnificent cinematography.
The old folks left the ranch because they couldn't stand living with
their son Phil.
Phil befriended the kid only to hurt the mother, but maybe it's hinted
sorta maybe he was getting other ideas before he died.
The kid had been told the hills were full of carcasses of cattle that
died of anthrax and he just kept looking until he found one.
Phil burned the hides because he couldn't stand the thought of traveling
Jews buying them up and selling them at a profit. Having Rose sell them
was really a plot device to allow the kid to offer Phil some other
rawhide to finish the rope. He said he'd acquired it so he could learn
to braid a rope like Phil.
The book is far more oblique than the movie about Phil's suppressed
homosexuality. According to Annie Proulx in an updated afterward to the
book, she was approached by Jane Campion and her producer to get her
opinion about whether Phil and Bronco Henry ever consummated their
affection. Proulx assured them that Savage's poetic description of
foliage in a pertinent passage contains all the coded references anyone
who knows coded references would need to understand that of course they
got it on. Apparently such subjects were not discussed openly in novels
when this one was written. The book doesn't mention any muscle
magazines.
It's quite a story and I thought the book was well worth my time. Annie
Proulx can't understand and neither can I why the immensely talented
Thomas Savage and his novels are not better known.