1] In his article, “Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial,” King discusses Robinson’s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, “the patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.” More than this, Robinson, he says “develops what we might want to call anoral syntax that defeats reader’s efforts to read the stories silently to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud” and in so doing, “recreating at once the storyteller and the performance” (186). Read “Coyote Makes a Deal with King of England”, in Living by Stories. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story. Write a blog about this reading/listening experience that provides references to the story.

I read a third of Robinson’s story, “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England”, in my head. For the rest of the story, I read it out loud in front of my partner. There were a couple of differences I came across while doing this reading exercise.

First, I found that when silently reading, inside my head, I could read the story faster. Because Harry uses – and Wendy Wickwire writes – a language that is not often used in published works, I found it was almost easier to read inside my head. When reading aloud, I found that I needed to slow down my reading pace a little bit and get used to the flow of the language.

Once I slowed my reading down, I was able to really embrace the flow of the language and the stories message. As I continued to read out loud, I found that I was able to interact more with the story as well, become more animated and really emphasize the points that I thought were notable.

In last weeks question, I answered what I thought King was emphasizing by telling the Creation Story and the Genesis Story by using different language forms. Similarly to last week’s answer, I think that with Wickwire deciding to use Robinson’s actual syntax, the point of the story is not to emphasize the believability but instead, its content. It is also a way to emphasize the importance of the storytelling, in general, in First Nations cultures. Stories, in many First Nations cultures, are told with an intention of guidance but always leave the listener to decide what it means to themselves. Again, an emphasis that is placed on the readers understanding of the story – rather than have a story that is “black and white” (Robinson 79).

Bibliography:

“Kings and Queens of England, Scotland, Wales, and the United Kingdom.” Royal Family History. Britroyals. 12 February 2015. http://www.britroyals.com/rulers.htm

“Wendy Wickwire.” School of Environmental Studies. University of Victoria. 12 February 2015. http://web.uvic.ca/~enweb/people/faculty/wickwire.php

Wickwire, Wendy. Harry Robinson: Living By Stories. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2009.

“Wile E. Coyote.” Wikipedia. n.p. 12 February 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_The_Road_Runner