That’s what my brother said when I told him to read Harry Robinson’s short story, “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England,” to himself silently.
“What is happening?” he asked. He was barely into the second page.
I must admit, I had the same response as well when I read Robinson’s stories silently. We both found that his colloquialisms, nuances, and the grammatical liberties he had taken made focusing on the story itself difficult. As I read the story, I found myself progressing from reading mentally to mouthing the words silently and finally I gave in and read the rest of the story aloud. My brother also found that he couldn’t help but do the same; only then did the story make sense to us. When it was time to read to each other (we had read the stories aloud to ourselves separately), I found that I was more animated when reading aloud to my brother than when it was just for myself. I also realized that I adjusted Robinson’s words as I tried to emulate the colloquial tone he was setting. Mostly, I would modify the -ing suffix: “Lots of soldiers watchin’. And Coyote went through there. Nobody seen ’em” (Robinson 68, emphasis added). I would do this only when I noticed another modified word (in this case, “’em”) either immediately preceding or following the verb. I think I needed to add my own touch to help the story flow a little for me as I was reading it. My brother, on the other hand, read the story verbatim.
In “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” Thomas King states: “[Robinson] develops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats readers’ efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read the stories out loud” (King 186). My brother and I wholeheartedly agreed that the story was much easier to understand when we heard it aloud, without the text in front of us. That being said, I disagree in part with King’s next comment:
“The common complaint that we make of oral literature that has been translated into English is that we lose the voice of the storyteller, the gestures, the music, and the interaction between storyteller and audience. But by forcing the reader to read aloud, Robinson’s prose, to a large extent, avoids this loss, re-creating at once the storyteller and the performance.” (King 186)
While Robinson’s story did have a distinct style that allowed his voice to shine through, no matter who read it, the story’s grammatical particularities made reading it aloud a clumsy (for lack of a better word) attempt at recreating a story that Robinson no doubt knew off the top off his head. While parts of Robinson’s oral telling may be preserved in the translation to text, I would argue that it does not re-create “at once the storyteller and the performance”. While Robinson may pause where appropriate, when telling this story, my brother and I would stop abruptly mid-sentence to figure out how to tell the next bit aloud, mangling the story’s narrative at certain points. That being said, understanding the story was a bit of a magical moment for the both of us and by the end of this exercise, instead of asking “what is happening?” we both said, “I get it now.”
The magic of hearing someone else’s voice in your mind.
Works Cited
King, Thomas. “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial.” World Literature Written in English 30.2 (1990): 10-16. St. Francis Xavier University. Web. 26 June 2014.
Liberman, Mark. “Ask Language Log: “Anything” and “everything”.” Language Log. N.p., 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 26 June 2014. <http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3520>.
Robinson, Harry, and Wendy C. Wickwire.Living by stories: a journey of landscape and memory. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. Print.
Hi Bonny,
I really enjoyed how you set your post up. Like your brother, while reading silently I often found myself confused and asking myself what’s going on here. Like a tongue twister or something, I would just get lost in short sentences, rhetoric questions and colloquial writing. I’m interested in your out-loud experience since you found it to sound clumsy while being the storyteller. I think you bring up a good counter argument to King because I don’t think you can always re-create a performance. In the right setting with the right story teller you absolutely can engage with a story, but your experience suggests the opposite.
When I did this activity with my roommate, I found myself instinctively creating a “performance” through voices, hand gestures, and both my roommate and I agreed that it helped with comprehension, but I imagine not as much if Robinson was there himself creating a more engaging story-telling environment. Do you think that if you tried this with someone besides your brother it would have maybe be a more impressive experience? Or even if there are other factors that play into enhancing the story-telling and story-listening experience?
Again, thanks for a great post!
Hi Rabia,
Thank you for your comments (on this one and the last one)! I’m glad we weren’t the only ones who found ourselves tongue-tied (and brain-tied) when reading Robinson’s story.
I’m accustomed to reading aloud stories that flow even when I read them silently; this story, with its “short sentences, rhetoric questions and colloquial writing,” has its own voice that defies conventional reading. I think part of my clumsiness was the result of me trying to figure out when Robinson would pause or where emphasis should be placed; I was so caught up in trying to re-create the story with all its nuances that I lost my natural flow of storytelling.
I think extra practise and increased familiarity with the story would have definitely helped, but I really wanted to just launch into telling the story right after reading it just to feel the difference from reading it to myself. I can see how turning this story into an entertaining performance would help with comprehension! I agree, my storytelling would definitely have a different feel if I told someone other than my brother. Then again, I was gripping the book with both hands (not unlike a learner driver’s hands on a steering wheel) making sure I didn’t miss any lines as I told the story so I’m not sure if I would have gestured much!
Hopefully I’ve answered your questions – thanks for reading and commenting!
“I think you bring up a good counter argument to King because I don’t think you can always re-create a performance.”
When I read these words :”I think you bring up a good counter argument to King” I crinch because I want so much for you to be able to think about what King says without creating arguments. Indeed, I want you to be able to think critically outside of the ‘argument’ mode of thinking. Instead of arguing or disagreeing, I want you to learn to seek out connections and intersections where ideas meet. I know you have spent an academic lifetime learning to create ‘an argument’ – but this work is different. See my comments below O.K. thanks 🙂
Hey Bonny,
I had to google the poem of which you took a picture. Is this a poem from one of Bo Burnham’s book? I had no idea he did anything aside from stand-ups.
As someone who doesn’t read poetry regularly for leisure, your discussion definitely reminded me the importance of the performative aspect in both “creating” and “consuming” a poem. And how in different ways of performing it, the meaning and context change accordingly, and almost fluidly.
I agree with you that Robinson’s lack of adherence to the conventional grammatical rules that we are accustomed to made the reading process a little “clumsy”, and at the beginning I took that as a form of colloquialism. However, by the read of the story, I saw that lack of adherence more as a form of rebellion and defiance (even though the story is told in the settlers’ language). Most of all, I’m fascinated that Robinson is able to write in a way that encourages so many of us to read his written words aloud, without giving us explicit directions to do so.
-Kayi
*by the end of the story
Hi Kayi – yes, there is so much to think about here; thank you. I particularly like the way you make this connection between grammar and rebellion — and our common reading experience that becomes a telling experience 🙂
However, by the read of the story, I saw that lack of adherence more as a form of rebellion and defiance (even though the story is told in the settlers’ language). Most of all, I’m fascinated that Robinson is able to write in a way that encourages so many of us to read his written words aloud, without giving us explicit directions to do so.
Hi Kayi,
It’s “Magic” by Shel Silverstein; sorry, I totally thought I had the image hyperlinked to the source. I really like this point: “I saw that lack of adherence more as a form of rebellion and defiance (even though the story is told in the settlers’ language).” Perhaps Robinson subverts grammatical rules precisely because this is written in the “settlers’ language;” to reject the confines of the language he must adopt in a settlers’ world.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
-Bonny
At first I thought you were contradicting yourself here because you begin by noting how you felt the need to read out loud when you began Robinson’s text, but then you say that you “would argue that it does not re-create “at once the storyteller and the performance”? But then I realized perhaps you are misunderstanding what King is suggesting when he says the reader becomes the story-teller.
Let’s take a look, you write:
“I disagree in part with King’s next comment”
This comment, I must confess, surprised me quite a bit – I mean, he is the expert, so why disagree? Why not perhaps question or explore his comment, or connect his comment with your observations? Or, recognize that perhaps you are misunderstanding his comment; but it just isn’t a good idea to be disagreeing with an expert when you only have 400 to 600 words. And, besides, I believe it is better to misunderstand then it is to disagree.
I write more about this on my blog for Monday – in preparation for beginning our work with our research teams.
So, let’s look more closely at what Kings has to say that provokes your disagreement:
“The common complaint that we make of oral literature that has been translated into English is that we lose the voice of the storyteller, the gestures, the music, and the interaction between storyteller and audience. But by forcing the reader to read aloud, Robinson’s prose, to a large extent, avoids this loss, re-creating at once the storyteller and the performance.” (King 186).
O.K. and you write:
While parts of Robinson’s oral telling may be preserved in the translation to text, I would argue that it does not re-create “at once the storyteller and the performance”.
But, Bonny, the way you describe it above, it seems as if both you and your brother were indeed “performing” – you may not have managed a good performance; but as you clearly say yourself at the beginning of this blog:
“As I read the story, I found myself progressing from reading mentally to mouthing the words silently and finally I gave in and read the rest of the story aloud.”
Look again at what King says: But by forcing the reader to read aloud, Robinson’s prose, to a large extent, avoids this loss, re-creating at once the storyteller and the performance
When you began to read out loud you became the storyteller and recreated the story. The story is the performance in Kings thinking. And, perhaps this is where you misunderstood.
So, what happened?
First, the words were spoken and someone was listening – you to yourself, and later your brother.
Remember the first two things we learned about Story:
1) once a story is told, you can never take it back,
2) when you read the story out loud with your brother listening you ‘recreated’ the story because the story is shaped by the listener.
And, as you clearly indicated, you did indeed change to the story. And, to go a step farther into an understanding of story;
3) at that moment the past meets the present. Stories bring the past into the present.
So, please consider my points here and reconsider your urge to agree or disagree and work harder to connect and reconnect.
Indeed, as we move along toward working together to create an online research conference. I would like you all to put aside ‘agreeing or disagreeing’ with ideas – I know this is a challenge. And, all your wonderful rhetorical techniques for creating arguments also need to be left behind for this work. Work hard to adjust your thinking and writing so the central goal is to find connections and intersections; not agreements or disagreement; and certainly no arguments; we are dialoguing 🙂
Hi Professor Paterson,
Thank you for this detailed feedback – I really appreciate it!
You’ve helped me realize that I have misconstrued both what it means to “re-create” a story/performance and what it is to become a “the story-teller”: “When you began to read out loud you became the storyteller and recreated the story. The story is the performance in Kings thinking.” That is what I misunderstood. As I read this part of King’s text, “But by forcing the reader to read aloud, Robinson’s prose, to a large extent, avoids this loss, re-creating at once the storyteller and the performance,” the words “Robinson’s prose” stood out to me – these are his words. In my mind, there was a standard that I had to meet when reading this story (the standard being reading without faltering). When I didn’t meet this standard, automatically I viewed this as a failed attempt at re-creating a story that would have flowed naturally from Robinson. In failing to re-create the story, I didn’t become a story-teller because of that mental standard. I see now that this was a rather silly interpretation on my part.
I do apologize for the agreeing/disagreeing and creating arguments in this post and most likely in a few of the other posts/comments as well. Having become accustomed to writing argument papers and needing to defend a position, I reflexively slip into argument-mode without even noticing sometimes. GAH! I will do my best to refrain from doing this in the future! That being said, I think I’m the only one who still doesn’t quite understand what you’re looking for in a dialogue. If I say I agree with someone’s point (commenting) and then proceed to expand on that, would it not be creating a dialogue and finding a connection? I tried to see if I could find an explanation in one of your past blogs, but I haven’t found anything specific. If there is one, could you (or someone) direct me to it? Or if this is what Monday’s blog post will be about, I look forward to reading it!
Again, thank you for the thorough response!
– Bonny
Darn. I think this entire response was one big “I agree”.
Work in progress!
Hi Bonny – thanks for you response – I am happy to see you realizing that it is your education that has taught you to 1) argue and 2) judge standard (including your own) – yes, I hope Monday’s post on my blog was helpful for understanding – thank you!