Thomas King’s novel, Green Grass, Running Water, begins with the sentence “[i]n the beginning, there was nothing. Just the water” (6). While upon first reading the opening, a reader may be expected to believe that King is talking just about the creation of everything. However, once the initial reading of the novel is dealt with, and a reader goes back to the beginning, this sentence takes on new meaning.

Much of King’s novel is a work of allusion; many of the characters are caricatures of actual people – sometimes one person is split into multiple. What is therefore interesting about restarting King’s novel and rereading his opening line is that it feels almost as if it is an allusion to the events that happen near the end of the novel (spoiler: the dam breaks and water goes everywhere – though if you’re paying attention in class, you should know this by now). It isn’t just that this is a tale about the beginning of creation, but it is also the tale of new beginnings for characters such as Lionel, Alberta, and Charlie – sorry Eli.

June-Ann Greeley, an associate professor at Sacred Heart University in Religious and Theology studies, describes the sacred nature of water in Indigenous culture and how it is “a relentless force of enormous power that . . . [is] an instrument of purging and cleansing and thus renewal” (Greeley 159). King’s novel most definitely uses water in such a way as Greeley describes as we see through the epic conclusion to Eli’s story and hardship fighting against the courts about the dam that threatens his home. Though the bursting of the dam ends the conflicts that surrounded it by making them all moot points, there is also new hope that comes from it in Norma’s determination to spend her time living in the valley that Eli occupied.

Though less dramatic, the character Charlie is also given a new beginning through water, for it is rain that perturbs him from leaving his hotel room. This new beginning comes in the form of reconnection with his father.

Alberta also gets a renewal from the rain as she spends some time standing in the it outside the Dead Dog Café, ending up drenched. This is a seemingly cathartic moment for her, as seen in the next scene where she retells the story we readers have just read to Latisha (King 353). It is also in this scene where we get the first indication that Alberta has gotten her wish of becoming pregnant without the help of a man (King 352).

Greeley seems to summarize perfectly what King’s novel portrays. That “[w]ater symbolizes the origin of life, the assurance of fertility” (Greeley 159), as seen in Alberta’s case, as well as “be a quixotic agent of hardship and death” (Greeley 159) as seen in Eli’s.

“Honour Water” by Canadian Métis artist, Christi Belcourt.

Works Cited

Belcourt, Christi. Honour Water. christibelcourt, September 15, 2014, http://christibelcourt.com

/water/honour-water/. Accessed March 19, 2021.

CanLit Guides Editorial Team, The. “Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King.” CanLit Guides, November 22, 2013, https://canlitguides.ca/canlit-guides-editorial-team/green-grass-running-water-by-thomas-king/. Accessed March 19, 2021.

Greeley, June-Ann. “Water in Native American Spirituality: Liquid Life – Blood of the Earth and Life of the Community.” Green Humanities, 2017, pp 156 – 179, https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1124&context=rel_fac. Accessed March 19, 2021.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Harper Perennial, 2012, eBook edition.

The various renditions of Thomas King’s ‘Green Grass, Running Water’ throughout the years. I am particularly intrigued by the centre artwork and I wonder what others think of the cover art. What one do you like the best?

One of the first things I noticed about Thomas King’s storytelling in Green Grass, Running Water was the way that the four goddesses, Coyote and “I” spoke. Most of the storytelling that happens when any of these characters are “on screen” is done through their interactions with each other or other characters who might happen along in the story. It is interesting when you think about how King was inspired by Harry Robinson to tell these stories; they come off as is they are oral stories being told because there is not much description of the world around the characters besides what the characters describe themselves. Much like in Robinson’s “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England,” the conversation is what drives the story. Though, what is important in both King’s and Robinson’s narratives is the conversations between characters as it is the connections between the people or characters in the stories that is the important aspect and not whether or not those characters are standing somewhere in Florida or in Blossom, Alberta.

In the conversations that King writes, it is easy to see the influence of Harry Robinson’s own form of “written orality” through the short, straight to the point sentence structure. The entirety of Robinson’s Coyote story is in short, almost grammatically confusing sentences that, as discussed by my fellow classmates in previous blog postings, seem to force the reader to say the sentences out loud in order to gain their meaning. In King’s novel, there is a replica of this kind of writing in the dialogue throughout the novel and not just with the above-mentioned characters. It can sometimes seem that two characters, engaged in conversation, are talking about two completely different topics. For example, in Part One of King’s novel, the character Lionel seems to experience this the most whenever he begins to talk about his future with Bill Bursum:

“I’m looking for someone to replace [Charlie].”

“I’ll probably go back to school.”

. . . “You know, in a good year Charlie would make thirty-five, forty thousand dollars . . .”

“Sure.”

“I think I’ve got a jacket that’ll fit you.”

“Probably go back to school.” (King 78 – 79)

A similar exchange can be read a little further between Lionel and his father, where while Lionel discusses his options about either going to school or working for Mr. Bursum, Lionel’s father goes on about needing help around the house. While King’s approach to dialogue is perhaps less confusing than Robinson because his sentences follow grammatical rules, he does play with the “hard to follow” element that Robinson’s text embodies by the disjunction between characters in their conversations.

Both King’s and Robinson’s texts deal with creationism in some sense. While King’s story focuses on the creating of the world through the four goddesses, Robinson’s text discusses about the creation of the Indian Law or “The Black and White” (Robinson 108). In both texts, the author’s play with the character of God, however, each version of God in the texts has a distinct characteristic that more or less gives the reader a good sense of their character. In Robinson’s text, God is not completely present as they instead send an Angel to speak to Coyote in order to get him to do their bidding. This version of God is seemingly all powerful and omnipotent, seeing that they understand that sending Coyote to the King of England won’t produce the Indian Law until much later, when a Queen finally takes the throne. On the other hand, King’s God is very childish and tantrum-y. They do not come off as being an all powerful being as most of their screen time in the story has them fighting with First Woman who doesn’t understand the “Christian rules” (King 67). God comes off as a comical character rather than the great and knowing one from Christian texts.

Works Cited

CanLit Guides Editorial Team, The. “Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King.” CanLit Guides, November 22, 2013, https://canlitguides.ca/canlit-guides-editorial-team/green-grass-running-water-by-thomas-king/key-themes/. Accessed March 12, 2021.

“Harry Robinson.” TalonBooks, https://talonbooks.com/authors/harry-robinson. Accessed March 12, 2021.

King, Thomas. Green Grass, Running Water. Harper Perennial, 2012, eBook edition.

Robinson, Harry. “Coyote Makes a Deal with the King of England.” Living by Stories. Talonbooks, 2005, eBook edition. Pp 93 – 115.

“Thomas King.” HarperCollins, https://www.harpercollins.ca/author/cr-100072/thomas-king/. Accessed March 12, 2021.