I have chosen to tackle question 6 for lesson 3.2, concerning the ways in which King’s text encourages his audience to read out loud, rather than silently. This post will touch on and expand some issues I raised in my blog post for lesson 3.1.

In my blog for lesson 3.1, I discussed my initial reading of Green Grass Running Water, and touched on the new levels of comprehension and readability I experienced upon reading parts of the novel out loud. King’s writing is virtually impossible to read easily or “comfortably”, without a great deal of thought on the part of the reader, particularly if the reader wishes to attain any real attempt at understanding the narrative (Chester, 54). He blends two traditionally unblendable genres, orality and literature, to create a hybrid between the two. In doing so, King effectively negates the “us” vs. “them” conflict often present in a discussion about orality vs. literacy. Like many of the other blendings of radically opposing ideas in his novel, such as the combination of Christian and Indigenous creation stories, King tackles the divide between orality and literature through the medium of story, using elements of both types of narrative techniques to form a unified whole(Bailey, 43). To return to my initial reading of the novel, I noticed that many of the allusions and phonetic tricks were far easier to comprehend when read aloud, or even impossible to understand or catch without reading them aloud.

For example, it wasn’t until I’d re-read the passage a couple times that I got the reference to Louis Riel(King, 334), despite the fact the names are deliberately repeated by Latisha, in order, without the use of “and” to separate them: the meaning simply doesn’t come across unless spoken aloud. This was probably the best example for me of King’s brilliance and his subtle(or, as mentioned above, deliberately obvious) assertion of the importance of orality within what appears, in many ways, to be a purely written narrative (Chester, 55). If one is simply willing to be a bit confused, to not understand some points, the story can be read as a purely “literary” narrative, the oral elements glossed over or ignored. However, such a reading leaves out most of the impact and meaning behind the narrative, and accepts the standard status quo of the traditional superiority of written narratives over oral ones.

King includes a number of other names which can only be fully understood once read aloud. The most obvious example is that of Dr. Joseph Hovaugh(King, 11), who is a parody of the famous Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. The character’s name is also a spoof on Jehovah-Joe Hovaugh. This allusion was also, I found, impossible to pick up when read silently, despite the fact I was looking for it based on my pre-readings prior to reading the text. However, like Louis, Ray, Al, this allusion has to be “heard” to be understood, demonstrating the level of context and information which can be conveyed by orality, which is lost when translated to the page(Flick, 144). It gives the phrase “lost in translation” a whole new meaning.

Another place King utilizes this technique is near the end of the novel, when Clifford Sifton and Lewis Pick observe the three cars which had mysteriously disappeared from puddles of water earlier in the novel floating down the flooded dam-“a Nissan, a Pinto, and a Karmann-Ghia”(King, 407). Here again, the names are repeated and emphasized without the use of any joining words, hinting strongly to the reader that something else is at play. While the cars also allude to the flood, and the mixing of Coyote and Flood motifs in the novel-Indigenous and Christian story elements being combined-they are also a reference to Columbus’ famous Nina, Pinta, and Santa-Maria(Chester, 55). As someone who had to memorize the names of those ships in elementary school, I still didn’t catch the significance when reading silently. The cars falling over the edge of the dam could also reference the old European superstition about falling off the edge of the world(Flick, 146). The allusion of the cars’ names is another example of the added depth and hidden information King conveys in his text, which can only be understood from the perspective and practice of orality.

King utilizes the different narrative mediums of orality and literacy to full advantage in the novel, combining the two seemingly completely opposite methodologies to create a discourse within the text where the whole meaning behind his narrative can only be understood when both halves are experienced and appreciated. King’s novel is full of mixed theories, methodologies, ideologies, narratives, and allusions, a veritable melting pot of combined meanings. King forces his readers to really think, to abandon passive reading, by “transgressing the boundaries that separate orality and literacy” (Ridington, 222). By creating names and allusions which can only be understood when spoken aloud, King highlights the value of orality, drawing his reader forcefully yet subtly away from a purely silent and passive reading experience.

Works Cited:

Bailey, Sharon M. “The Arbitrary Nature of the Story: Poking Fun and Oral and Written Authority in Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” World Literature Today. 73.1(1999): 43-52. Web. July 9, 2014.

Chester, Blanca. “Green Grass Running Water: Theorizing the World of the Novel.” Canadian Literature 161-162 (1999): 44-61. Web. July 9, 2014.

Donaldson, Laura E. “Noah meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the Rain: Intertextuality In Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.7(1995): 27-43. Web. July 3, 2014.

Flick, Jane. “Reading Notes for Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Canadian Literature 161-162(1999):140-172. Web. July 9, 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Ridington, Robin. “Re-Creation in Canadian First Nations Literatures: “When You Sing it Now, Just Like New.” Anthropologica. 43.2(2001): 221-230. Web. July 9, 2014.

I have chosen to answer question 5 for lesson 3.1, comparing the different narrative styles of King and Robinson in their stories about Coyote covered in lessons 2.3 and 3.1.

When I first started reading Green Grass, Running Water I was rather confused, to be honest. Intrigued, but definitely confused. The seemingly fragmentary nature of the narrative, and the initially disconnected narrative pieces and apparently unrelated characters made it hard to follow. So, I tried reading a few of the passages again, this time out loud with a friend, each of us reading a different section each time. Just as with Robinson’s “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”, the moment I stopped trying to understand the narrative from the context or perspective of a modern westernized novel or narrative, the intersections and deeper meanings within the text became instantly recognizable. By the time I got to a point in King’s text when the characters started to connect on an overt narrative level, I was thoroughly hooked.

The purpose of the above anecdote is to highlight the initially seemingly fragmentary nature of both texts, with King echoing Robinson’s style on a larger scale, both in terms of overall length, and length of the different fragments of narrative. Both texts weave seemingly different narratives together to form a rich and diverse whole, a stark contrast to the “short and lifeless” nature of many written narratives (Robinson, 8).

Robinson’s method of storytelling combines aspects of orality with a written medium, resulting in a seemingly fragmentary and disjointed silent reading experience, as was demonstrated by last week’s lesson. When read silently, the story seems to jump all over the place within the same few lines, repeating sections and adding nonsensical words and phrases in places where they don’t seem to belong. King’s narrative is slightly less fragmentary on a small scale, but when taken as a whole, I found reading the text in an oral manner, particularly in the parts about Coyote, helped convey the idea of the narrative as following King’s layers of imposed orality on a written text(echoing Robinson’s recorded orality). King’s narrative is considered by some scholars to be “rooted in oral tradition“, offering an unusual bridge between written and oral narratives (Schorcht, 91).

King employs a similar narrative voice to Robinson in some places in his novel, particularly in the passages where the four old Indians talk about stories of the beginning of the world-the disjointed speech exchanged between the four in several places throughout the novel(King, 9-12) echoes Robinson’s repetition of multiple voices in a single passage, relaying information from several narratives at once.

Coyote is an active character in both narratives, but in Robinson he’s described through the distinctive yet subtle, ever-presented personal voice of the narrator: “Did you know what the Angel was? Do you know? The Angel, God’s Angel, you know. They sent that to Coyote”(Robinson, 66). By contrast, there is no direct address of the reader/listener in King, but the use of the pronoun I in places seems to imply a narrator or story teller, who converses directly with Coyote: “”Coyote,” I says, “you are all wet””(King, 429). Both narratives employ a personal narrative voice, which could be construed as the voice of a story teller who occasionally directly interacts with the narrative and/or the audience.

Another similarity between the two texts is the use of the Coyote figure in relation to the christian God. Robinson’s Coyote is a paradoxical figure, both employed by “God” and an independent and empowered character (Ridington, 347). Robinson’s Coyote is both chained and free, only “let out” by a god(not explicitly stated as Christian), who instructs him how to act through the medium of an angel-an interesting level of intertextuality to biblical narratives is introduced here, with the presence of a messenger angel. This Coyote is a character of few words, who is articulate when he has to be, loquacious when necessary, straightforward, and no-nonsense: “I’m another king. I come to see you. I want you, you and I, we can talk business”(Robinson, 70).  Coyote is a rather removed figure in the story, his thoughts inaccessible, while the king’s are an open book to the listener. God doesn’t directly appear, speaking to Coyote through an intermediary only, and yet his presense is felt at all times, clearly identified as giving Coyote his power and orchestrating events. I found this dichotomy between the Coyote figure of Indigenous narratives and the christian God interesting on several levels, particularly in how it relates to the narrative in King.

King’s narrative contains a lot of biblical allusions, a good example being the continous presence of a flood narrative theme throughout the novel, represented by the mysterious puddles of water appearing under all the cars(Donaldson, 29). However, the presence of the christian God is hard to pin down in the novel, seen largely in the metaphor of “Dead Dog” equaling “Dead God”(Ridington, 343). King’s Coyote, in somewhat of a contrast to Robinson’s, becomes a “disjunctive and disruptive” figure (Smith, 516), who yields the power of god just as in Robinson’s narrative, but on a seemingly unrestrained and unsanctioned level: “”It wasn’t my fault,” says Coyote. “It wasn’t my fault””(Robinson, 429). Coyote acts as the narrator for a large portion of the story, flitting in and out with tales of how the world began. Here, Coyote’s voice seems to dominate the narrative, out shouting the running Christian ideology of the flood and God, and expressing “Indian” creation narratives. Echoing Robinson, King’s Coyote becomes a potentially subversive figure, challenging ideas of “white” superiority. However, in my opinion, one possible reading of the ending of King’s novel, could be seen to imply that the “white” narrator, represented by I, and the christian god, represented by the flood narrative, triumph over Coyote and the Indigenous narratives in the end, acting as a metaphor(although not necessarily an endorsement) of traditional “white” superiority in Canadian Culture:

“”Okay, Okay,” says Coyote. “I got it!”   “Well, it’s about time,” I says.   “Okay, okay, here goes,” says Coyote. “In the beginning, there was nothing.   “Nothing?”    “That’s right,” says Coyote. “Nothing.”          “No,” I says. “In the beginning, there was just the water.”  “Water?”, says Coyote.    “Yes,”I says. “Water.”       “Hmmm,” says Coyote. “Are you sure?”   “Yes,” I says. “I’m sure.”    “Okay,” says Coyote, “if you say so. But where did all the water come from?”       “Sit down,” I says to Coyote.     “But there is water everywhere,” says Coyote.   “That’s true,” I says. “And here’s how it happened.”             –Green Grass, Running Water, King,431.

Works Cited:

Donaldson, Laura E. “Noah meets Old Coyote, or Singing in the Rain: Intertextuality In Thomas King’s Green Grass Running Water.” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.7(1995): 27-43. Web. July 3, 2014.

King, Thomas. Green Grass Running Water. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1993. Print.

Ridington, Robin. “Coyote’s Cannon: Sharing Stories with Thomas King.” American Indian Quarterly. 22.3(1998): 343-362. Web. July 3, 2014.

Robinson, Harry. Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory. Compiled and edited by Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talon Books, 2005. 1-90.

Schorcht, Blanca. Storied Voices in Native American Texts: Harry Robinson, Thomas King, James Welch and Leslie Marmon Silko. Indigenous People and Politics. Reviewed by Ellen L. Arnold. Studies in American Indian Literatures. 2.17(2005): 90-93. Web. July 3, 2014.

Smith, Carlton. “Coyote, Contingency, and Community: Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water and Postmodern Trickster.” American Indian Quarterly. 21.3(1997): 515-534. Web. July 3, 2014.